Leigh Drogen and the Return of the Whisper Number

I want to tell you guys about something cool going on that you may want to get involved with.  For years and years now we’ve guffawed at the sell-side analysts on Wall Street for many reasons – one of the main ones being that they were essentially a herd of discounted cash flow monkeys who all attended the same schools and essentially just lapped up the guidance from company management anyway.

Watching The Street’s analyst miss the Apple earnings bus every quarter for the last 6 years has been hilarious, as an example.

Leigh Drogen, one of the early employees at StockTwits and my friend, took this hole and filled it with his new site Estimize.

Now non-Street and amateur analysts can submit their own estimates and be graded based on accuracy – not just based on the pedigree of the firm they work for.  It’s a meritocracy based on being right often.  Imagine that.

The site just launched in beta and the community submitting estimates is small and growing.  I believe that at capacity, Estimize will bring back the Whisper Number once again – only this time, it will actually be based on something, not just “take the First Call consensus and add/take a penny.”

Tomorrow morning Best Buy($BBY) reports earnings.  The Estimize consensus is way lower than what The Street is looking for (see below).  Let the fun begin!

(Click to Embiggen!)

Check out Estimize here.