Talking Biz News is starting a new weekly feature where business journalists can ask basic questions about reporting or writing a story, and we’ll do our best to answer them. The journalists shall remain anonymous, and the information is intended to help everyone in the field.
Do you know of a quick reference for looking up a company’s track record at meeting/beating Wall Street estimates? Unfortunately, we don’t have a Bloomberg machine. I can painfully figure out a company’s recent track record, but I’d like to find a source that allows me to search several years quickly.
Talking Biz News responded:
Yahoo Finance is great for this data.
The business journalist responded:
I can easily get the past few quarters on Yahoo, but I’d like to get 5-10 years of data, if not more. A source told me that one of [the journalist’s home state]’s public companies is “managing expectations” maybe a little too aggressively. I’d like to get a complete history of the company’s ability to meet/beat before I put anything in the paper or interview the company’s CFO.
Talking Biz News responded:
Have you tried an analyst who covers the company?
The business journalist responded:
I didn’t think of that. We have a few local analysts who cover the company. I bet they can dial this up fairly easily.
UPDATE: The business journalist e-mailed back on Tuesday to say, “To close the loop: A local stock picker just sent me screen snapshots from his Bloomberg terminal that show five years of earnings/sales data for the company. Magically, despite a global economic meltdown, they’ve only missed earnings once in five years.”
If you’ve got a business reporting question you’d like to pose to Talking Biz News, send an e-mail to croush@email.unc.edu.
The New York Times is looking for a versatile editor to edit enterprise and feature…
International editor Matt Lamers is leaving Marijuana Business Daily. He has been there for seven years. Lamers…
The New York Times is looking for an experienced editor and manager to lead our…
Fortune is seeking two experienced, enterprising, well-sourced reporters to supercharge our coverage of artificial intelligence. …
TheStreet.com senior tech reporter Jake Krol is leaving to become U.S. managing editor for Tech Radar. Krol…
The Seattle Times, a family-owned news organization and one of the nation’s premier regional news…
View Comments
If you or anyone you know has an account with Fidelity or Schwab, you can use
their research queues for free and then you will find all of this information and a lot
more for every stock that's traded... and the graphics are quite understandable.
I started a small IRA at Schwab for the purpose of access to their data and research as much as anything else.
There are no ethical issues in this that I can see; if you're a paying customer to these investment firms, this information is part of the service they offer.
Jeff Kosnett
Senior Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance and Kiplinger.com