A few days ago I posted Chasing Value: Valero -- when is a downgrade an upgrade? and since then I have become even more disturbed with our government and the stock analysts, as well as the companies they represent. Eitan Bernstein, an analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co downgraded his expectations for the major oil refiners Wednesday and lowered his price target for Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) from $77 to $65.

How can this be? The stock was trading around $40 per share and closed Friday at $39.96. As a shareholder who has watched this stock go down, any signs of optimism have to be welcome I suppose, but what in the world is this guy saying. He is saying he has concerns about the sector, but believes VLO will be 61.5% higher this time next year any way!

This makes no sense. He can't be too concerned, can he? If you believed him you would buy all the VLO shares you could get hold of -- and so would he! Maybe he did? Or maybe he is trying to pump up the stock to help a big client? Or maybe he is clueless and does not know what he is talking about? What might his e-mails reveal?

Anyone can predict anything, and they have a right to be an idiot, but what responsibility does he have to eat his own cooking? VLO started the year near a high that is between Bernstein's old and new projections, and I for one have hopes of it rebounding, but I do not have the level of certainty to broadcast such an exact figure. What is the purpose?

The change in his projections of 15.5% is indicative of the silliness of this analysis. We have seen this before and will see it again ... so buyer beware.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. DISCLOSURE: I currently own shares of VLO.

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It was reported today that robotic surgery company Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG) may not meet analysts average revenue expectations for 2008 and this is driving shares down $7.00 hovering around $281 per share.

Although the company guidance discussed figures around $850 million while the analysts were GUESSING $873 million temporary disappointment is affecting trading. Despite this, Eli Kammerman of Cowen & Co is maintaining his "Outperform" rating saying that he expects Intuitive to beat Wall Street expectations, and that the shares will outpace the market by 15 percent to 20 percent over the next 12 months.

So earnings might be in question, the stock is bouncing, the outperform rating is intact, and everybody still loves Intuitive -- but the stock is down so far on what is an up day. It was only a month ago I posted something similar Chasing Value: Intuitive Surgical drops on analyst disappointment after ISRG report actual earnings. If not for the analysts where would we find opportunity?

Is this a buying opportunity or signs of a week market? That answer involves more guessing, but if the stock trends down more, than it is more of an opportunity, which means you should have this world class medical device company on your watch list.

UPDATE: closing price $274.75 ,-$13.90 (-4.82%)

EXTENDED HOURS: $289.00, +14.25 (5.18%) on news that ISRG will replace Bear Stearns in the S&P 500.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of ISRG.

Yesterday Wall Street, investors and journalists all got excited because Piper Jaffray (PJC) analyst Safa Rashtchy changed his outlook for eBay Inc (Nasdaq: EBAY) to underperform. If he is correct, investors buying the stock in the last few years are sitting on dead money and will be for the next year or so.

I have no idea how eBay will perform with all the noise surrounding it these days, but I do know how Piper Jaffray analysts are doing -- so far they are under performing. Although eBay closed down yesterday, it remains above Safa's valuation, so investors are not jumping on his bandwagon yet.

My prediction is that PJ's analysts are more likely to under perform than eBay!

In January PJ predicted Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) would be $600 per share by the end of the year. Yesterday GOOG closed at $373.73. See: Google after the bell for 8-24-06: Google's pending excess problem as reported by Brian White. Well it's not December 31, 2006 yet, but so far PJ is way under performing because the shares are down, not up, and time is a wasting. Do you envision GOOG advancing more than 50% by the end of the year?

What's really astounding to me is the degree of accountability relative to the pay. Analysts are very well paid no matter how bad their track record. That implies to me that they are being paid for something other than analysis. To be fair, while down now, GOOG has been trading in a broad range over the course of the year.

Through its two earnings reports investors have been exercising some caution even as I have been blasting valuation every time I hear an overzealous prediction. In my post What IS Google worth? I tried to not only to show the difficulty of valuing such a precarious stock and relatively new company, but also indicate where a deep value investor might be willing to buy into the company. As time passes, Google will grow into its current valuation.

PJ has let the $600 target ride all year so I guess it still stands by it. PJ's call on eBay leaves a lot of room for error. Who knows, maybe this "dart" will land near its target? With each passing day the probability of PJ being correct about GOOG diminishes. I think it is more likely that PJ changes its GOOG prediction before the end of the year because I sure don't see investors throwing $600 per share into the pot.

And with eBay, your guess is as good as theirs.

Disclosure: I have never held any position in Google long or short. I owned shares in eBay until January 2006 and have no current position.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for Design and Research of an Architecture & Planning firm.