By: Charles Bowen Earning Center Provides Tools For Earnings Reports
Baseball writers aren't the only ones overdosing on statistics at this time of year. Take a stroll by your newspaper's business desk to see the calculators working overtime.
The reason? Many publicly traded companies have their fiscal years synchronized with the calendar, meaning right about now, those quarterly earnings numbers start rolling in again, and rolling over your financial reporters.
Even the old pros could use some help with staying abreast of earnings reports for locally significant companies. And a new feature added to a prominent Web-based business site may be just the ticket.
The Earnings Center, operated by Bloomberg.com, can list:
o Names of publicly traded companies reporting earnings on any given day.
o Earnings estimates for specific companies from analysts and actual results.
o Links to detailed stock quotes and charts, company news and Bloomberg's total-return-on-investment calculator.
o Historical data for designated companies going back to the first of this year.
To use the resource, visit the site at http://www.bloomberg.com, where the introductory screen is like page one of a daily business journal, complete with current headlines, commentary, charts, graphs and tables, all focused squarely on the current business day.
Scan the site's left-hand column and click the Earnings Center link. The resulting screen is topped with the calendar page for the current month with today's date highlighted.
Scroll that page to see the list of public companies due to report earnings on this day. Each company is identified by name and stock symbol. For each is listed the report date, the period ending and estimated and actual earnings, if known.
At the end of each line item is a "Link" which can be clicked to see a menu of additional reports available for that company, including the latest earnings, analysts reports, detailed stock quotes and charts and company news.
You also can move forward and backward in time through the Earnings Center. Using the calendar at the top of the page, you can click on another day of the current month to see companies reporting earnings that day. You also can use links under the calendar page to see the previous or next month. In addition, drop-down menus above the calendar enable you to specify a certain month and year to view a different calendar page.
If you want to zero in on the earnings of a specific company, type its stock symbol into the data entry box at the top of the Earnings Center screen. If you don't know the symbol for the company you seek, click the Lookup Symbol link in the left column, under the stock quote data entry box.
The Earnings Center also stays abreast of current financial news related to earnings announcements. At the top of the screen are hyperlinks to earnings news of the day, the latest profit warnings and announcements and the latest analysts ratings. After any of these links is clicked, the site lists story summaries and headlines with a "More" link that can be clicked for the full story.
Other considerations for using Bloomberg.com in your writing and editing:
o While the Earnings Center is its latest addition, Bloomberg.com has been wowing investors and financial experts alike since its launch in 1995. It is part of the growing media empire of Michael R. Bloomberg, who left Salomon Brothers in 1981 to found a varied information network, highlighted by Bloomberg News financial wire service, Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg Television.
o Bloomberg.com is organized into three primary channels -- Markets, Money, and Life -- each further subdivided into section. To help you quickly find data you seek, each page of a Web channel lists all other sections and pages within that channel, usually hyperlinked from the left column.
o Also don't miss icons at the top of the screen that link to other resources, including charts and financial tools.
---
Bowen writes columns, articles and books from West Virginia, and is host of the daily Internet News syndicated radio show (http://www.netnewstoday.com).
charlesbowen@compuserve.com
Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here