At the end of the second session, we listed the criteria that would be used to evaluate and compare the data sources.  

It is worth repeating.  The data items and analyses each are assigned a score and placed in a matrix to be summarized to create a final score.  The rows of the spreadsheet are the companies, and the colums are:

1)     Ticker Symbol
2)     Company Name
3)     Exchange
4)     Industry
5)     Market Sector
6)     CUSIP – Industry Code
7)     URL – Company’s home page
8)     StockCentral Screening QI Results
9)     Complete Roster Quality Rating
10)    (3) S, B, R - QI from spreadsheet calculation
11)    Criteria –ranking by QI Peer Agreement
12)    (3) S, B, R – Overall Score
13)    (3) S, B, R – Data Years
14)    (3) S, B, R – Freshness  (Annual)
15)    (3) S, B, R – Freshness (Quarterly)
16)    (3) S, B, R – Peer Agreement (Sales)
17)    (3) S, B, R – Peer Agreement (PTP)
18)    (3) S, B, R – Peer Agreement (EPS)
19)    (3) S, B, R – EPS R2
20)    (3) S, B, R – Sales Growth - 10yr.
21)    (3) S, B, R – EPS Growth – 10yr.
22)    (3) S, B, R – Sales Growth (TTM)
23)    (3) S, B, R – EPS Growth (TTM)
24)    (3) S, B, R -  Profit Margins
25)    (3) S, B, R – Return on Equity

Note:  “S” = Stock Central Data (Hemscott); “B” = BI Data (Compustat); “R” = AAII Data (Reuters)
       (3) indicates that there are three columns (one for each data source) for this item.
    

Copies of a spreadsheet that shows all of this data are attached to this session.  These are Exhibit B1 and Exhibit B2.  Once you take a look, you might think of this as the "mother of all spreadsheet s"!  Shrinking the spreadsheet to fit a single page makes the spreadsheet very difficult to read, much less to understand.  If you want to examine these spreadsheets, it is best to open them with Adobe Acrobat Reader and set the "zoom" factor to 800% or so.  Then you can scroll around in the spreadsheet to look at the individual numbers, should you choose to do so.

It might be better, though, to not focus on numbers, but to focus on the color code at 100% zoom.  Green indicates where the three data sources are in agreement, and the yellow, and red boxes indicate varying degrees of differences.  Black indicates that the data is incomplete or that the company is too young for analysis

Companies are arranged in the worksheet such that the companies in best agreement across the data sources are listed first.

The overall scores for the three data sources are based on these criteria:

Quantity and Timeliness of Data

Number of Data Years – Ideally, the user would have ten years of data to work with. Some companies have not reported that many years. Providers are graded according to the number of years below the maximum reported by any provider.

Freshness of Data (Annual) – Some differences between data results arise due to the difference in policy regarding the speed with which the data is published. Providers lose points when their data is a year behind the timeliest.

Freshness of Data (Quarterly) – Essentially the same as annual data except points are taken for each quarter behind. Preliminary data is rewarded; but the provider is penalized when preliminary data is not complete.

Peer Agreement (Raw Data)

Peer Agreement (Derived and Calculated Data)

EPS R-Squared (7-yr.) Relevant Historical Sales Growth Relevant Historical EPS Growth Recent (TTM) Sales Growth Recent (TTM) EPS Growth Profit Margin Trends Return on Equity Strength

The items that comprise the Quality portion of Take $tock are roughly compared. Using certain thresholds, each is assigned a color identifying it as “Desirable,” “Acceptable,” “Unacceptable,” or “Other” (missing, too young, or too small). Each is compared with the best of the three results and is penalized 5 points for each color step it is away from the highest.

Finally, the complete scores are shown in the "Analysis of Results" page attached to this message.  (Note that the references to dates on that page are somewhat confusing.  That dates of interest are the "Data Originated" dates at the head of the three columns).  The final scoring results are:

StockCentral (Hemscott) :  79.4

BI OPS/SDS (CompuStat): 62.7

AAII (Reuters): 78.7