I’ve been using Portfolio123 for a little less than a year now, but am turning to the forums for the first time.
I’ve been working recently with a number of formulas that make use of the functions relating to accruals, but am finding that the number of stocks returning an NA result is extraordinarily high, even within a large cap universe where one would expect fairly complete reporting.
For instance, looking at the formula “RecvblChgTTM + InvtyChgTTM + PayablesChgTTM” in the S&P500 universe produces only 214 results, in comparison to 285 "NA"s. This effectively renders the results useless for screening purposes.
I find similar results in using the balance sheet functions for things like current assets, current liabilities etc., which return over 20 percent "NA"s, even within the S&P500. Broader universes (as expected) return an even higher percentage of NAs.
Am i perhaps missing something obvious? I might have expected something like this with microcaps, but find it hard to believe that such a high percentage of the S&P500 is missing basic cash flow statement and balance sheet items. Particularly when all but 18 of the S&P500 is coming up with a complete statement flag.
A quick spot check shows that not every company reports those lines. Or, more accurately, they report the change to working capital as a consolidated line.
Exxon, for example, is in that category. In its most recent Q it reported “Changes in operational working capital, excluding cash and debt”.
Many thanks to you both. It looks like I was underestimating the variety of ways that balance/cash flow data is reported and the implications for NA handling.
Do I correctly understand that for something like total current assets (which returns 93 NAs in the S&P500), the Compustat data only reports an entry if the company itself reports a total? Thus, for something like Aflac (AFL) (example from the top of the list) that reports Cash and Cash Equivalents and Receivables, but not a figure for total current assets, total current assets will come up as NA, even though the components of that line are in fact available?
CompuStat does some analytical work. That number in the Exxon cash flow statement, for example, does not correspond with the Other Working Capital Change line that we have on the site. It looks like they’re making some kind of adjustment based on the footnotes.
There are also some things that might not be present, but you can back into it. As a trivial example, if you give me the cash position as it stood last quarter and the cash position as it stands now, I can give you the change to the cash position regardless of the presence of the cash-flow statement.
The problem in this case is that if Exxon reports only the grand total, CompuStat can’t put anything into the parts because they just don’t know what the proportion is of each in the total.
There’s a similar problem on the balance sheet: There’s cash; there’s cash equivalents; and there’s cash and cash equivalents. Which of the two component lines is going to have data is going to be a combination of the wishes of the company, the data collection team’s opinion, and the nature of the assets. For our purposes, we should almost always use the total for this reason.
By the way, NAs in total current assets are likely one of two things: Financial companies or companies that just reported earnings without a detailed balance sheet.
Are you saying that your Data can still show NA even if the number appears in the company’s Annual Financial Statements published in the Company’s Annual Report and filed with the SEC??
If so, then how can we rely on the data for our own calculations when there are significant numbers that are displayed as NAs?
I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but I do not recall any instances of NA in FactSet’s figures where the figures are actually in the statements. Do you have any specific examples of this?