Earnings and analyst estimates data

Earnings and analyst estimates data captures what sell-side analysts expect companies to report. Investors use consensus figures to measure surprises, track revisions as a signal and value companies on forward multiples; investor relations teams use it to understand market expectations.

Typical fields:

• Company identifier and fiscal period
• Measure: EPS, revenue, EBITDA, cash flow or segment KPIs
• Consensus mean, median, high, low and number of estimates
• Individual broker estimates and dates, where licensed
• Revisions over set windows
• Actual reported value and surprise
• Company guidance ranges

Sources and collection

Estimates are contributed by brokers and research firms or collected from published research, then normalized so each estimate is on the same accounting basis as the actuals. Consensus is calculated after removing stale estimates. Some providers add crowdsourced estimates or figures derived from guidance and earnings calls.

Delivery and pricing

Delivered as daily files, warehouse shares and APIs. Licences are normally annual, priced by coverage universe, history, whether broker-level detail is included and how many users or systems consume it. Point-in-time consensus history is often an add-on and is essential for backtesting.

Before you buy

• Check how stale estimates are excluded and how quickly consensus updates.
• Confirm actuals use the same basis as estimates, otherwise surprises are misleading.
• Ask for point-in-time snapshots to avoid look-ahead bias.
• Review coverage of small caps and emerging markets, where analyst counts are low.
• Confirm whether consensus figures can appear in client materials.