Where do you source financial data? – Simply Wall St Help Center

FAQs

Where does Simply Wall St source its financial data?

All of our data comes from S&P Global Market Intelligence, the world’s premier provider of financial data.

This includes data on company fundamentals, management and governance, pricing, past financials, and future estimates from different brokers and analysts.

Industry average and market average data is computed by Simply Wall St, with inputs from an aggregation of company data from the S&P database. You can read more about this in our analysis model documentation.

How is the past financial data collected?

Our data provider S&P Global Market Intelligence collects data from:

Publicly Available Sources: S&P Global Market Intelligence collects data from all publicly available sources including regulatory agencies, company websites, exchange websites, and news agencies.

Company Contacts: S&P Global Market Intelligence maintains an active file of contacts with various corporations, including numerous private investment firms. These contacts allow us to obtain and clarify information not available in shareholders’ reports.

How is the future consensus estimate data collected?

Our data provider employs a 300-person collection team dedicated to gathering estimates and to ensuring accuracy and timeliness for our clients worldwide. S&P Global Market Intelligence performs numerous validation and accuracy checks, both manual and automated. To guarantee data consistency, consensus estimates are created only with estimates on the same accounting basis. To guarantee quality content, S&P Global Market Intelligence relies on its proven methodology of rigorously qualifying each contributing analyst prior to inclusion, engaging in proactive surveillance by contacting contributing analysts to verify any anomalies in the data and working closely with contributing analysts and clients to stay on top of new content offerings and changes in regional accounting requirements.

How estimates are generated?

Data estimates are based on the consensus estimates from registered Analysts covering a company.

These estimates are crucial in various sections of our company analysis report:

Future Growth section: The estimates of the company’s future expectations for revenue, cash flow, net income, and return on equity are used to calculate growth for the respective line items.

Learn more about it here: Understanding: The Future Growth Section

Valuation

Fair Value using the 2-Stage Discounted Cash Flow Model: In the high-growth stage, estimates over the next ten years of levered free cash flow to equity are used, which are sourced from market analyst consensus estimates.
Analyst Price Target: Through extensive research, analysts provide a price target—an indication of where they foresee the stock price in the future based on their forecasts.

You can find further information about it here: Understanding the Valuation section in the company report

Who are the analysts covering a company?

These are Analysts that are registered and are complying with the regularity bodies like SEC and FINRA. They may come from an independent research firm, investment banks, and brokers.

These are some of the most reputable financial institutions in the world, including:

JP Morgan
Bank of Merrill Lynch
Moodys
Citi Group
Goldman Sachs
Wells Fargo
UBS
Morningstar
Credit Suisse
Barclays
Thomson Reuters

For a full list of contributors to the S&P Global Market Intelligence data platform, you can view the spreadsheet below.

Note: Analyst coverage varies from company to company. If there is analyst coverage for a company on Simply Wall St (i.e. future growth estimates), it would include only a very small portion of this list.

S&P Capital IQ Contributor Index.xlsx

How are the professionals and ownership data collected?

S&P Global Market Intelligence uses a range of sources to collect professional data:

Regulatory Filings: Forms 8-K, 10-Q, 10-K, DEF 14A, 40-F, 20F, quarterly and annual reports from various regulatory organizations, and Prospectus forms. These agencies include the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) via EDGAR, Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) via SEDAR, Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) via ASX, and the Regulatory News Service (RNS), which is owned by the London Stock Exchange for U.K. companies.

News Aggregators: S&P Global Market Intelligence follows a variety of Newswires (e.g., Nexis®, Factiva Select, PE Week Wire, Globes online, AltAssets, and FSA Register), searching for news articles, press releases, and corporate announcements, in English as well as in select local languages.

Company websites: Public, private, private equity, venture capital, investment firms, and advisor firms are profiled directly from the company's own website. Changes on the professional and board pages on the company's websites are captured through web monitoring.

Company Surveys: S&P Global Market Intelligence is regularly in touch with public companies as a means of gathering information.

Key Developments: S&P Global Market Intelligence's Executive Change Key Developments data serves as a source for interim data processing. As the Key Developments team scans thousands of sources daily, it passes.

How do I validate the reliability of information?

You may check our data against the company filings made available through regulatory bodies (such as the SEC in the United States), the market exchange where your stock is listed (e.g. NASDAQ), or company websites. We discourage validating information against unaudited sources such as the news outlets.

What if I spot an error in the data?

Errors in our financial data often turn out to be a difference in calculation methodology. For example; our financial data is presented in ‘trailing twelve months’ form as opposed to quarterly or annual which can be very out of date. If you do believe there is an error in our data, please send us an email at support@simplywallst.com and provide a source like a financial statement released by the company.