Click to enlarge. Source: Posts at Eventide
FORTUNE — Robert Paul Leitao, who runs the Braeburn Group of independent Apple (AAPL) analysts, published the 12-month price targets of 15 Braeburn members on his Posts at Eventide website Saturday. They range from a low of $700 to a high of $1,100, for an average of $890 a share.
How does that compare with the price targets of the analysts who cover Apple for Wall Street?
Frankly, considering that the professionals’ targets range from a bizzarre $270 to a market-high $1,200, it’s hard to tell who are the real pros and who the amateurs.
Thomson/First Call‘s consensus, based of a poll of 43 brokers, is $713.12. That’s 20% lower than the Braeburn Group’s in part because First Call takes seriously that unnamed analyst who is convinced that Apple’s share price is a bubble about to burst and collapse to $270.
We’ve been keeping our own spreadsheet, building on the work of AAPLInvestor‘s Terry Gregory, and we can name names.
The $270 price target comes from ACI’s Ed Zabisky, who’s been telling his clients since January to borrow Apple shares and sell them short — a strategy that would have cost anyone who followed it a fortune.
On the other extreme, Stuart O’Gorman of Henderson Global thinks Apple is headed to $1,2oo — $100 higher than the most bullish of the Braeburn independents.
The consensus among the 47 professionals analysts in our poll is $724. When their estimates are added to the Braeburn Group’s, the average 12-month price target of all 62 Apple specialists comes to $753.
The stock closed Friday at $574.13
Below the fold: The two group’s price targets. We’ll find out next June whose were closest to the mark.
The Braeburn Group
Source: Posts at Eventide
The Professionals
Source: Apple 2.0 and AAPLInvestors.net
