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', *, 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'.

  • 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, *, 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.

  • 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, *, 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.

  • 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 the data should be retrieved for. Three kinds of periods can be specified: for companies reporting quarterly, use the format '4Q-2022', for companies reporting semi-anually, use '2H-2022', and for fiscal year estimates, use 'FY-2022'.

  • 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