SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – By day, Robert Leitao manages a Catholic church in Southern California. By night, he indulges his other passion: predicting Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) results.

Leitao is part of a cadre of amateur forecasters, bloggers and hobbyists who sift through reams of data every quarter to guess at Apple’s quarterly results – often putting professional analysts to shame by coming up with more accurate predictions.

Co-founder of the Apple Independent Analysts Group, Leitao is ranked seventh for the December quarter out of 50 analysts who cover Apple by Fortune magazine, which found that his estimates turned out to be much closer to the results than those from prestigious banks such as Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

While Wall Street analysts’ forecasts for Apple’s revenue and earnings per share were off by an average of 21 percent in the latest quarter, amateur analysts missed by just 10 percent, according to the Fortune data.

This raises questions about how good Wall Street is at forecasting Apple, the largest U.S. company by market value, famous for trouncing market forecasts quarter after quarter.

Leitao does not believe he and the more than 100 members of the Apple Independent Analysts Group – which he started as a hobby – are smarter than their professional peers. He suspects Wall Street is more inclined to play it safe.

It does not help that Apple itself tends to lowball its guidance. “In their work, there is a greater risk in coming out with aggressive estimates that are too high,” Leitao said of analysts at top-tier brokerage firms.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 3 (Reuters) – It’s the year’s hottest initial public offering, but some wealth managers find themselves having a hard time recommending Facebook to their clients.

The world’s biggest social network is expected to seek a $75 billion to $100 billion valuation in its IPO, the most anticipated stock offering from Silicon Valley since Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) went public in 2004.

At Granite Investment Advisors in New Hampshire, Chief Investment Officer Scott Schermerhorn has already been fielding queries from clients eager to get in on the action.

“We had some clients call and once we step them through the numbers, they sober up,” he said. “The valuation is 100 times earnings in a stock market that is trading at 12.”

“At the end of the day, if you have a small amount of money that you are in a position to lose a chunk of it and you want to speculate on Facebook, go ahead,” he added. “But don’t use money that you really need to save to do it. I would put it in Microsoft, which is dirt cheap right now.”

To be sure, most technology analysts would argue that Facebook’s growth potential far exceeds that of Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research), whose stock has largely traded between $20 and $30 in the past decade. It is taking its first steps toward content streaming for instance, and has yet to make a serious overseas thrust.

And a $100 billion valuation for Facebook at the top end - while huge in absolute terms – is not that out of whack in Silicon Valley IPO tradition. Facebook is seeking a multiple of up to 27 times annual revenue, or up to 100 times earnings.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – It’s the year’s hottest initial public offering, but some wealth managers find themselves having a hard time recommending Facebook to their clients.

The world’s biggest social network is expected to seek a $75 billion to $100 billion valuation in its IPO, the most anticipated stock offering from Silicon Valley since Google Inc went public in 2004.

At Granite Investment Advisors in New Hampshire, Chief Investment Officer Scott Schermerhorn has already been fielding queries from clients eager to get in on the action.

“We had some clients call and once we step them through the numbers, they sober up,” he said. “The valuation is 100 times earnings in a stock market that is trading at 12.”

“At the end of the day, if you have a small amount of money that you are in a position to lose a chunk of it and you want to speculate on Facebook, go ahead,” he added. “But don’t use money that you really need to save to do it. I would put it in Microsoft, which is dirt cheap right now.”

To be sure, most technology analysts would argue that Facebook’s growth potential far exceeds that of Microsoft Corp, whose stock has largely traded between $20 and $30 in the past decade. It is taking its first steps toward content streaming for instance, and has yet to make a serious overseas thrust.

And a $100 billion valuation for Facebook at the top end – while huge in absolute terms – is not that out of whack in Silicon Valley IPO tradition. Facebook is seeking a multiple of up to 27 times annual revenue, or up to 100 times earnings.