Will BIDU Beat Earnings? When Will They Announce Earnings? Will the Stock Go Up?

In advance of the earnings announcement on October 29, 2014 for Baidu (BIDU), the following assessments have been made:

• Seeking Alpha is leaning towards a yes: "Baidu might beat consensus estimates again after a successful Q2".
• Zacks is inconclusive: "Our proven model does not conclusively show that Baidu will beat earnings this quarter."

MarketWatch has an average price target of $262.59, while the NASDAQ's website is reporting a 12-month price target range consensus of $246. Zacks' price target is $231.50, while Deutsche Bank's consensus target is $238.96. BIDU was trading $219.92 at end of day Monday, October 27.

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While most stock trading platforms charge a $10 commission per trade, there are some lower-cost options:

• Interactive Brokers charges around $1 per order for active investors with a certain amount of volume.
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Finally, Robin Hood is purporting to offer zero commission stock trading, but there is currently a waiting list to gain access. 

Warren Buffett Teaches You How to Invest: The Stock Market for the Average Investor

Simple, easy-to-understand advice from the greatest investor of all-time. In an interview, Buffett explained a stock market strategy for the average investor without advanced financial knowledge:

I would recommend that they put a similar sum then maybe they'd be earning more as they went along. But save something every month and basically put it in an index fund. They are not in a position to make judgments on stocks themselves, they're not in the game any more than I can prescribe medicine or something of the sort. They will get a good result. The American economy has done wonderfully. I mean, if you take the 20th century, the Dow started at 66 and it ended at 11,400. Now think of that. How could anybody get a bad result investing starting at 66 and 11,400? But a lot of people do because they jump in at the wrong time or they think they know this stock versus that stock. But the average person should just consistently buy equities, which to me are by far the most attractive investment choice around and put it in, and if they do that for twenty or thirty years, they'll do very well.