Humiliated by a bunch of bloggers, amateur analysts and assorted day traders

With revenues that grew 73% and earnings that more than doubled, Apple (AAPL) proved Tuesday that the fourth quarter results that so disappointed Wall Street last fall were a fluke. The company that Steve Jobs built is still that rare beast in American business: A $400 billion giant that acts -- and grows -- like a start-up.
Tuesday's results also revealed another fluke: The shellacking that our team of independent analysts suffered in October at the hands of Wall Street analysts with some of the worst track records in the business. (See Apple earnings smackdown: The bloggers got clobbered.)
This time, as evidenced by the preponderance of Wall Street blue on the bottom of the chart at right and the dominance of Indie green at the top, the order we had documented in more than half a dozen consecutive quarters was restored.

The first, at right, shows the cumulative record of three-dozen Apple (AAPL) analysts -- both professional and amateur -- over the past four quarters.

The list looks a lot like the one we posted this morning, with the amateurs bunched at top and the pros -- including some of the biggest names on Wall Street -- at the bottom.

Topping it, for the second quarter in a row, is Asymco's Horace Dediu, a Romanian blogger whom we featured in a post last October and who was profiled on Bloomberg.com Wednesday.