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 Zacks Historical Data

Overview

With the inception of Zacks Investment Research in 1978, Zacks history databases were born. All data is collected and maintained directly by us. Providing timely current equity investment information to investors is an ongoing process. Zacks' databases incorporate critical fundamental data including earnings estimates, stock recommendations, and earnings surprises. New increments of Zacks history are added each day, as we collect, monitor and maintain the North American equity research data.

Designed and used by Zacks' own quantitative analysts, Zacks history databases have several characteristics which may make it better suited for use in applications or situations where consistency of definition and preciseness of dating are relevant considerations.

Consistent Definition of EPS

Zacks EPS estimates and actuals have been and continue to be maintained in conformance with a proprietary definition of operating earnings per share before extraordinary and non-recurring items. Comparison between Zacks estimates and Zacks actuals is a comparison between definitionally-comparable numbers.

Accurate Analyst Dating

Zacks EPS estimates and recommendations have, since the firm's inception, been maintained per an active (rather than passive) observational basis. Accordingly, estimates and recommendations are and have been associated with an analyst action date: the date on which the analyst actually published or changed his or her estimate or recommendation.

The major difference between Zacks' history and history maintained solely via passive sampling, is that the Zacks history will show analyst changes as of the date that they actually were made, rather than the date corresponding to the next sampling date (which could be as much as a month later).

Quantitative models built using Zacks accurate analyst dating are more likely to deliver excess returns than models built using history based on passive sampling. Zacks is the only research vendor that provides historical data with accurate analyst dating, going back for more than fifteen years.

Constant Company Identifier

Zacks company identification is maintained via a unique Zacks Company Identification Code, which remains constant through the life of the stock issue: through name changes, ticker changes, even CUSIP changes. History for non-survivor companies is available, maintained comparably with survivor history. And all per share data is consistently and cumulatively adjusted for all splits which have occurred since 1978.

Estimates by Issue/Fiscal Periods

With respect to presentation of history, the main orientation perspective of Zacks history is the company (or, more precisely, the common stock issue: Zacks maintains multiple sets of data for certain companies with more than one issue of common for which estimates exist) and the broker. For any company, estimates are originally stored according to their specific fiscal period reference (e.g., the fiscal quarter ending March 1999, or the fiscal year ending December 1999; 'long-term growth rate' estimates are representationally categorized as a separate fiscal period reference, although they do not, strictly speaking, refer to any fiscal period, specific or otherwise). Within a given referenced fiscal period or periods, a company's estimates can be subdivided according to the broker who issued the estimate, and, within each broker subgroup, can be ordered by the date on which the broker issued or changed the estimate for that specific fiscal period for that company.

Time Series Data - For Each Analyst

Accordingly, for any given combination of company and broker, estimate history can be understood as a group of time series, each one depicting the event history of the broker's estimate for a different fiscal period for which the company would ultimately report earnings. The aggregate of all such series is Zacks Individual Analyst Estimate History.
Similarly, for any given combination of company and broker, recommendation history can be understood as a group of time series, each one depicting the event history of changes to the broker's recommendation for the company's stock. The aggregate of all such series is Zacks Individual Analyst Recommendation History.

Consensus Statistics

Within a given referenced fiscal period or periods, a company's estimates from all brokers can be aggregated, and statistical time series generated. For presentational purposes, generic fiscal period identifiers (e.g., the most-recently completed quarter, 'Q0'; the current fiscal quarter, 'Q1', or the current fiscal year, 'F1') are utilized to enable standardized data formatting for diverse companies, and to provide a continuous presentational basis over time. The sum of all such continuous time series (whether monthly or weekly) for all companies is Zacks Consensus Estimate History.

Consistent EPS Surprises

The notion of Earnings Surprise (i.e., comparison between earnings estimates and the actual EPS) involves recourse to the Consensus EPS estimate, as a comparative measure of consensus opinion. In order to provide a meaningful basis for historical examination of EPS Surprises, Zacks Investment Research has maintained a separate database dedicated to the accurate representation of both actual EPS and consensus EPS numbers, specifically designed with respect to EPS surprise. Accordingly, Zacks Surprise History maintains the consensus estimate for the reported quarter as of the report date, and maintains the originally-reported value of the actual, prior to any restatements. Company identification is consistent over time, and non-survivor companies are, of course, included. And, most importantly, both the consensus and the actuals are comparably maintained in conformance with Zacks' definition of operating EPS before extraordinary and nonrecurring items.

Corporate Action History

In order to maintain Zacks History, both with respect to consistent company identification over time, and also with respect to cumulative split-adjustment of data, Zacks Investment Research has also maintained event histories of its maintenance actions with respect to splits and corporate events; representing actions taken by Zacks with respect to maintenance of Zacks historical data. These data are available as Zacks Split History and Zacks Corporate Event History.

Data Maintenance

Zacks Investment Research continues to update and maintain its databases on a daily basis, reflecting each day's addition of new estimates, recommendations, and surprises; plus corrections to previously-entered data (the result of Zacks' long-standing and rigorous quality control process); and also application of splits and corporate event maintenance. Accordingly, as Zacks history continues to accumulate each day, Zacks can provide incremental or replacement updates to any of Zacks Historical Databases; thus enabling its clients to maintain continuously current representations of history, current to the most recent day. (Updates are also available on weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual schedules).

Available Historical Data Sets

Fundamental Data

  • Annual Fundamental Data database has a universe of over 6,600 active companies and covers 12 years of annual income statement and balance sheet items and 5 years of cash flow items;10-K data.*
  • Quarterly Fundamental Data database has a universe of over 6,600 active companies and covers 6 years (24 Quarters) of quarterly income statement and balance sheet items;10-Q data.*

    Active Companies Historical Data

  • Active Companies Historical Data database has a universe of over 6,700 active companies with 144 months of monthly history for price, volume, growth rates, consensus estimates and estimate revisions, surprises, actual EPS, broker and Zacks ratings and ratio items.*
  • Daily Prices database has a universe of over 7,800 active companies with the 560 days of daily price and volume data.*
  • Weekly Prices database has a universe of over 7,800 active companies with the 625 weeks of weekly price and volume data.*

    Economic and Exchange Rates Data

  • Historical Economic Indicators database has 12-15 years monthly history for various economic data, including: 144 months of data for Treasury Bonds, corporate bonds, municipal bonds and FHA mortgages, 144 months for Prime Rate, Treasury Bill discount, and Federal Funds, 181 months covering indicators and indices such as Consumer Credit, Personal Income, Housing Starts, Capital Utilization, Unemployment Rates, CPI, GRP, GNP and PPI; 181 months money supply data (M1, M2, M3).*
  • Historical Currency Exchange Rates database has 144 months of foreign exchange rates for over 50 major currencies.*

    Active and Research Companies Data (Backtesting Databases)

  • Zacks Primary Backtesting database has a universe of over 8,000 companies (roughly 4,000 active and 4,000 research companies) with 15 years of price, volume, growth rates, consensus estimates and estimate revisions, surprises, actual EPS, broker and Zacks ratings and ratio items as well as fundamental items. This database ticker set includes members of the S&P 1500 plus domestic stocks that have had a market capitalization of over $100 million or have been in the top 1000 stocks by market capitalization in any time of the last 20 years. *
  • Zacks Secondary Backtesting database has a universe of over 4,000 different companies (roughly 2,000 active and 2,000 research companies) with 15 years of price, volume, growth rates, consensus estimates and estimate revisions, surprises, actual EPS, broker and Zacks ratings and ratio items as well as fundamental items. This database ticker set includes ADR's. REIT's, closed end investment companies, and secondary class of common stock plus stocks with smaller market capitalization.*

    * Requires Zacks software.

    Available Historical Data Files

    Consensus Estimate History Files
    For approximately 7,400 survivor companies and 2,800 non-survivor companies, weekly or monthly history file provides a series of records showing week-end or month-end status starting in 1978 through the closing date of the file.

    Fiscal year estimate statistics include mean estimate, standard deviation, number of estimates for last, current and next fiscal years (monthly files also include number of brokers raising and lowering estimates). Fiscal quarter estimate statistics include mean estimate, standard deviation, number of estimates for last, current, and next fiscal quarter (monthly file also includes number of broker raising and lowering estimate). Long-term growth estimate statistics show status of the mean estimate, standard deviation, and number of estimates for annualized long-term earnings percentage growth rate (monthly file also includes number of brokers raising and lowering estimates).

    Monthly files also include average broker recommendations and number of broker increasing and decreasing recommendations.

    Consensus Recommendation History
    Recommendations history files are available on monthly (from 1985) or daily (from 1992) basis. Data includes number of analysts with ratings, average recommendation, number of analysts with strong buy, buy, hold, sell, strong sell and no rating, and observation date.

    EPS Surprise History
    Surprise is a comparison between originally-reported EPS and estimate for the quarter. Depending on client's particular needs, several types of Surprise history files are available. Files include quarter end and report dates, actual EPS, EPS Estimate, and EPS Surprise (in %).

    Individual Analyst Estimate History **
    Event--oriented monitoring of individual analyst estimate coverage for fiscal years, fiscal quarters, and long-term growth from 8,000 analysts at more than 280 brokerage firms. More than 5 million records for over 10,000 survivor and non-survivor companies since 1978. Updates available on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual frequencies.

    Individual Analyst Recommendation History **
    Even-oriented monitoring of recommendations from 8,000 analysts at more than 280 brokerage firms. More than 250,00 records for over 7,000 survivor and non-survivor companies since 1984. Updates available on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual frequencies.

    Daily Price and Volume History
    File contains daily prices and volume.

    Full Daily Price History
    File contains daily High, Low, Close and Volume data.

    Corporate Events History
    A comprehensive historical record of corporate events such as change of company's fiscal year end month, change of company name, change of company's ticker symbol, stock split poor stock dividend, change of company's CUSIP symbol.

    Zacks II: Estimate Statistics
    Available data includes: company information (CUSIP, ticker, name); current and next fiscal year estimate statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, high estimate, low estimate, number of estimates, number of upward revisions during period); last, current, and two upcoming fiscal quarter estimates statistics (mean, median, standard deviation, high estimate, low estimate, number of estimates, number of upward revisions during period); actual EPS for the two-most-recently-reported quarters, plus 12-month and reported fiscal year EPS are also provided;ratings are represented by the average analyst rating and number of current recommendations .

    Additional Data Files (some available in HTML format)

  • History files: each file provides ten years of history for a single data item. Observation frequencies: annual, quarterly, or monthly.
  • Fundamental History files with standardized five categories of information (annual & quarterly income statement, annual & quarterly balance sheet; annual cash flow statement). Up to eleven years of annual income statement & balance sheet info; up to five years of quarterly income statement & balance sheet; up to five years of annual cash flow statements. Also available in HTML format.

     

     

     ** Access to Zacks Individual Analyst Estimates and Recommendations is subject to approval of individual contributing brokers.

 

 

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