Does anyone who works on the street or for an investment bank know how a retail analyst actually comes up with their estimate of same store sales or eps? I have a friend who owns a hedge fund and according to him all the analyst does is speak to management and attempt to gauge from their âbody languageâ if performance is rising or declining from previous months. But how then do they come up with a specific number? Do they just add or subtract subjectively from last months figure? Is there a statistical model or any sort of formulaic process involved and if so what is it?