Equity Analysts Can't Analyze

Once in a while someone will ask me what makes me think I can perform investment analysis better than someone with a long history on Wall Street.  My answer usually incorporates my lack of conflicts of interest that would otherwise make me biased to the upside.  Now I have even more ammo for my contentions:

Analysts, we found, were typically overoptimistic, slow to revise their forecasts to reflect new economic conditions, and prone to making increasingly inaccurate forecasts when economic growth declined.

Those experts aren't so hot after all.  I think it pays to be cynical.  Perhaps someday you'll agree with me.