What is Yahoo Finance?

What does 1Y target estimate on Yahoo! Finance for BAMM mean?

• When I search for help on the Yahoo! Finance site, it says: "The 1-year target price estimate represents the median target price as forecast by analysts covering the stock. Data is provided by Thomsonfn.com. More detailed target estimate data can be found by clicking a company's "research" link." But sometimes the data don't make sense. For Books-A-Million (BAMM), currently trading at around $22, the 1Y estimate is $12. Are most analysts predicting this stock will tank?

• Answer:

  It means at the time the data was collected, the average price the stock was expected to be at one year from then was $12 according to the analysts who were tracking it. The fact that it is now $22 could mean any number of things. The data could be old, the company could have made drastic improvements since the analyst data was released, the market could be more optimistic about the stock than the selected analysts who are tracking it, or the analysts could see something the market does not. It's been my experience that the Yahoo 1-year target price estimate is not updated regularly, whether that be because analysts themselves don't issue new predictions often or because Yahoo is slow in updating that data field. I'd guess the former.