Visible Alpha Actuals & Consensus

Actuals and consensus estimates from Visible Alpha. This is only available to users with a Visible Alpha subscription.

The Visible Alpha signals can be evaluated for companies, in which case a parameter (line item) is required. For advanced users, they can also be evaluated for a company-line item entity, in which case a parameter should not be provided.

Usage

va_actual(parameter=None, freq='FQ/FS', alignment='afp', *, currency, currency_method, period)
Parameters:

  • parameter (int/str/list[int/str]) – The parameter (line item) to retrieve. Specify either the numeric parameter id or the parameter name. Note that only a small set of parameter names is supported (see list below). For all other parameters, the parameter id must be specified - this can be retrieved from the Visible Alpha terminal by clicking on a line item and looking up the “Excel Code”. For example, the “Total revenue” parameter has a parameter id of 190. A parameter should only be provided when the signal is evaluated for a company. Multiple parameter names or ids may be specified in a list. Each line item is then tried in sequence until a line item with data is found, for each company.

  • freq (str) – The signal frequency. One of 'FQ/FS' (quarterly or semi-annual fiscal periods, depending on which calendar the company uses), 'FQ' (fiscal quarters), 'FS' (fiscal semi-annuals) and 'FY' (fiscal years). The default is 'FQ/FS'. (In addition, the legacy values 'q', 's' and 'a' are supported; these are deprecated and will be removed after March 2024.)

  • alignment (str) – How to align the data. Either 'afp' (actual fiscal period end dates), 'fp' (fiscal period end dates normalised to last day of month), 'pd' (publication date, i.e. the day the report was published) or 'rd' (report date; i.e. the day the report impacted trading). The default value is 'afp'.

  • currency (str) – Optionally, a three-letter currency code (e.g. USD or EUR). If a currency is given, the values are converted to the given currency.

  • currency_method (str) – How the exchange rate is determined. Either 'mean' (use the average exchange rate over the fiscal period) or 'last' (use the exchange rate of the last day in the fiscal period). The default value is 'mean'.

  • period (str) – Which period to fetch the number from. One of 'q' (quarterly), 's' (semi-annually), 'a' (annually). (This argument is deprecated and will be removed after March 2024; use freq instead.)

va_consensus(parameter=None, statistic_type_name='mean', freq='FQ/FS', alignment='afp', unreported_periods=None, *, currency, currency_method, relative_to, relative_days, period)
Parameters:

  • parameter (int/str/list[int/str]) – The parameter (line item) to retrieve. Specify either the numeric parameter id or the parameter name. Note that only a small set of parameter names is supported (see list below). For all other parameters, the parameter id must be specified - this can be retrieved from the Visible Alpha terminal by clicking on a line item and looking up the “Excel Code”. For example, the “Total revenue” parameter has a parameter id of 190. A parameter should only be provided when the signal is evaluated for a company. Multiple parameter names or ids may be specified in a list. Each line item is then tried in sequence until a line item with data is found, for each company.

  • statistic_type_name (str) – The type of the statistic to fetch. The options are 'mean', 'median', 'min', 'max', 'stdev' (standard deviation of broker estimates) and 'count' (number of broker estimates). The default value is 'mean'.

  • freq (str) – The signal frequency. One of 'FQ/FS' (quarterly or semi-annual fiscal periods, depending on which calendar the company uses), 'FQ' (fiscal quarters), 'FS' (fiscal semi-annuals) and 'FY' (fiscal years). The default is 'FQ/FS'. (In addition, the legacy values 'q', 's' and 'a' are supported; these are deprecated and will be removed after March 2024.)

  • alignment (str) – How to align the data. Either 'afp' (actual fiscal period end dates), 'fp' (fiscal period end dates normalised to last day of month), 'pd' (publication date, i.e. the day the report was published) or 'rd' (report date; i.e. the day the report impacted trading). The default value is 'afp'.

  • unreported_periods (int) – Number of unreported periods to return. Default is None, which returns all unreported periods.

  • currency (str) – Optionally, a three-letter currency code (e.g. USD or EUR). If a currency is given, the values are converted to the given currency.

  • currency_method (str) – How the exchange rate is determined. Either 'mean' (use the average exchange rate over the fiscal period) or 'last' (use the exchange rate of the last day in the fiscal period). The default value is 'mean'.

  • relative_to (str) – Optionally, the known time of the data for each fiscal period. Either 'afp' (the last date of the fiscal period) or 'pd' (publication date). If provided, the signal produces data as they were known at the given date relative to each fiscal period. The known time can be further modified by the relative_days argument. If not provided, the last available consensus estimate is returned.

  • relative_days (int) – Optionally, the number of days the known time should be moved relative to the date defined by the relative_to argument. A negative value signifies an earlier known time, while a positive value signifies a later known time. For example, relative_to='afp', relative_days=2 means that the known time is two days after the last date of the fiscal period. This argument requires the argument relative_to to be set. The default value is 0. If relative_to is set to 'pd', the value cannot be positive.

  • period (str) – Which period to fetch the number from. One of 'q' (quarterly), 's' (semi-annually), 'a' (annually). The default value is 'q'. (This argument is deprecated and will be removed after March 2024; use freq instead.)

va_metric(parameter=None, freq='FQ/FS', alignment='afp', statistic_type_name='mean', unreported_periods=None, *, currency, currency_method, relative_to, relative_days)

Returns the combination of actuals (for historical periods) and consensus (for future periods) as a single time series. This is a convenience method, and useful for example when you want to calculate YoY change on a Visible Alpha line item, and want to compare next quarter’s consensus with the corresponding quarter in last year’s actuals.

Parameters:

  • parameter (int/str/list[int/str]) – The parameter (line item) to retrieve. Specify either the numeric parameter id or the parameter name. Note that only a small set of parameter names is supported (see list below). For all other parameters, the parameter id must be specified - this can be retrieved from the Visible Alpha terminal by clicking on a line item and looking up the “Excel Code”. For example, the “Total revenue” parameter has a parameter id of 190. A parameter should only be provided when the signal is evaluated for a company. Multiple parameter names or ids may be specified in a list. Each line item is then tried in sequence until a line item with data is found, for each company.

  • freq (str) – The signal frequency. One of 'FQ/FS' (quarterly or semi-annual fiscal periods, depending on which calendar the company uses), 'FQ' (fiscal quarters), 'FS' (fiscal semi-annuals) and 'FY' (fiscal years). The default is 'FQ/FS'. (In addition, the legacy values 'q', 's' and 'a' are supported; these are deprecated and will be removed after March 2024.)

  • alignment (str) – How to align the data. Either 'afp' (actual fiscal period end dates), 'fp' (fiscal period end dates normalised to last day of month), 'pd' (publication date, i.e. the day the report was published) or 'rd' (report date; i.e. the day the report impacted trading). The default value is 'afp'.

  • statistic_type_name (str) – The type of the statistic to fetch. The options are 'mean', 'median', 'min' and 'max'. The default value is 'mean'.

  • unreported_periods (int) – Number of unreported periods to return. Default is None, which returns all unreported periods.

  • currency (str) – Optionally, a three-letter currency code (e.g. USD or EUR). If a currency is given, the values are converted to the given currency.

  • currency_method (str) – How the exchange rate is determined. Either 'mean' (use the average exchange rate over the fiscal period) or 'last' (use the exchange rate of the last day in the fiscal period). The default value is 'mean'.

  • relative_to (str) – Optionally, the known time of the data for each fiscal period. Either 'afp' (the last date of the fiscal period) or 'pd' (publication date). If provided, the signal produces data as they were known at the given date relative to each fiscal period. The known time can be further modified by the relative_days argument. If not provided, the last available consensus estimate is returned.

  • relative_days (int) – Optionally, the number of days the known time should be moved relative to the date defined by the relative_to argument. A negative value signifies an earlier known time, while a positive value signifies a later known time. For example, relative_to='afp', relative_days=2 means that the known time is two days after the last date of the fiscal period. This argument requires the argument relative_to to be set. The default value is 0. If relative_to is set to 'pd', the value cannot be positive.

va_revisions(parameter=None, period, statistic_type_name='mean')

Retrieve revisions of the consensus estimate for a given accounting period.

Parameters:

  • parameter (int/str/list[int/str]) – The parameter (line item) to retrieve. Specify either the numeric parameter id or the parameter name. Note that only a small set of parameter names is supported (see list below). For all other parameters, the parameter id must be specified - this can be retrieved from the Visible Alpha terminal by clicking on a line item and looking up the “Excel Code”. For example, the “Total revenue” parameter has a parameter id of 190. A parameter should only be provided when the signal is evaluated for a company. Multiple parameter names or ids may be specified in a list. Each line item is then tried in sequence until a line item with data is found, for each company.

  • period (str) –

    The accounting period or periods the data should be retrieved for. This can be specified in four different ways:

    • A specific period, given by a period identifier on the form nQ-yyyy, nH-yyyy or FY-yyyy.

    • A specific period, given by its end date on the format yyyy-mm-dd. In this case the period is a quarter or a semi-annual period, depending on whether the company reports quarterly or semi-annually.

    • A relative period, referred to as FQn, FSn or FYn. The current fiscal period is treated as the 1st period, so FQ1 refers to the current fiscal quarter, FQ0 to the previous fiscal quarter, and FQ2, FQ3, …, to future fiscal quarters.

    • Rolling relative periods, referred to as GQn, GSn or GYn. For any date, GXn returns the same data as FXn would on that date. For example, for a company with a fiscal year that matches the calendar year, GY1 would return the revisions for 2023 for any date in 2023, the revisions for 2024 for any date in 2024, and so on.

  • statistic_type_name (str) – The type of the statistic to fetch. The options are 'mean', 'median', 'min', 'max', 'stdev' (standard deviation of broker estimates) and 'count' (number of broker estimates). The default value is 'mean'.

Examples

Retrieve quarterly total revenue:

va_actual('Total revenue')

Retrieve annual total revenue:

va_actual('Total revenue', period='a')

Retrieve quarterly gross margin, aligned to report date:

va_actual('Gross margin', alignment='rd')

Retrieve quarterly estimates for total revenue:

va_consensus('Total revenue')

Retrieve quarterly estimates for total revenue, but only include estimates for one unreported quarter:

va_consensus('Total revenue', unreported_periods=1)

Parameter names

  • Total revenue

  • Gross profit / (loss)

  • Gross margin

  • EBITDA

  • EBITDA margin

  • Operating income / (loss)

  • Operating margin

  • Net income / (loss)

  • Net margin

  • Total assets

  • Total liabilities

  • Receivables, net

  • Accounts receivable

  • Inventories, net

  • Accounts payable

  • Total debt

  • Capital expenditures

  • Free cash flow

  • EPS-Basic

  • EPS-Diluted

  • Dividend per share

  • Weighted average shares outstanding-Basic

  • Weighted average shares outstanding-Diluted