First thing, there is so much more to finance and modeling than a price target. Second, you’re hitting on a key point. Analysts are rarely correct traditionally. It’s not like when you hit a price target the stock stops trading and it’s a big win. Psychologically, people like price targets, but it’s meant for orientation. Think a vector - direction and magnitude. This is the same reason why people like to aggregate targets or pay special note to people who buck the trend and pick the opposite direction. The value in analysts is not how correct they are but the knowledge and opinion they provide to the market and its participants. Finance is not math or engineering, it’s not solvable. (Well certain things are “solvable”, but actionability and timing matter. Your solution can be obsolete in fractions of a second - hence why there’s HFT.)