Bank of America Slashes Estimates for Goldman, Lehman, Morgan

Analysts at Bank of America cut earnings estimates for Goldman, Lehman and Morgan Stanley today. In the event that you have been on a mission to the moon for the past three months and some delivery snafu has prevented you from receiving your copy of The Wall Street Journal, which has outlined in painstaking detail how terrible the environment has been for nearly every single line of business that the brokers rely on, day after day, you can depend on the trusty analysis from these jokers at Bank of America. Somehow, over Memorial Day weekend, it occurred to them that maybe, just maybe, they need to lower their unrealistic earnings targets so they don’t wind up looking like fools in front of the investment community when the brokers report their dismal earnings results next week. When Lehman reports a loss, instead of a profit as these guys were predicting before today, they can say “See, we predicted they would lose money!” I suppose that if analysts continue to lower earnings estimates a week before earnings every single quarter, than their overzealous earnings targets for these stocks may actually begin to resemble reality. Here’s a tip to all the brokerage analysts out there: you may wish to extend your ability to forecast earnings beyond the one week timeframe, or risk becoming a part of next week’s unemployment numbers.