Estimates

Estimates is where you see what the sell-side expects for a single company. It pulls together consensus analyst forecasts for the financials (revenue, EPS, EBITDA and more), how those forecasts compared to the numbers the company actually reported, the rolling buy/hold/sell consensus and average rating, the high/mean/median/low price-target range and how it has tracked the share price, the broker-by-broker view of who is bullish or bearish, and the running stream of rating upgrades, downgrades, initiations and reiterations. Everything lives on one screen, organized into six sections you can move between freely. Find it under Equities → Estimates for any company. Users also call it “Estimates & Forecasts,” “Analyst Estimates,” “Consensus Estimates,” “Forecasts,” or “Wall Street Estimates.”

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What it is

Estimates is the forward-looking, consensus workspace inside the Equities Data Viewer. Where Financials & Ratios shows the numbers a company has actually reported, Estimates shows what analysts expect next and how good their past expectations turned out to be. It is built from six sections that sit side by side for the same company:

• Overview — one-glance summary of analyst sentiment and the current price-target/consensus picture.
• Detailed Viewer — per-metric consensus forecast versus reported actual, by fiscal period, with a trend chart.
• Surprises — earnings beats and misses: how reported actuals compared to consensus, with a BEAT / MISS / MET flag.
• Price Target History — how the analyst price-target range has moved over time versus the actual share price.
• Recent Analyst Estimates — broker-by-broker and analyst-by-analyst recommendations and price targets.
• Firm Rating Revisions — the chronological stream of rating upgrades, downgrades, initiations, reiterations and maintains.

The Overview, Price Target History, and Recent Analyst Estimates sections each carry the same consensus summary — the latest price-target range, the analyst count, the buy/hold/sell tally, and the average 1-5 rating with a plain-language label — so the headline read stays in front of you as you move through them. The consensus and broker data come from LSEG IBES & Broker Estimates; the rating-revision stream comes from a separate analyst-ratings source.

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When to use it

Reach for Estimates when you need the market’s forward view on a company rather than its reported history:

• You’re writing an earnings preview and need where consensus revenue, EPS, and EBITDA sit for the upcoming quarters and years.
• You want to know how the stock has historically beaten or missed consensus, and by how much.
• You want the current buy / hold / sell split and the average analyst rating, plus how sentiment has trended over the last year.
• You want the high / mean / median / low price-target range and how targets have tracked the actual share price.
• You want to see which individual brokers are most bullish or bearish, with their target prices and the dates they last moved.
• You’re tracking sentiment shifts — the latest upgrades, downgrades, and initiations among covering analysts.
• You want to cross-check a valuation against where consensus expects the business to land.

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When to use something else instead

Estimates is forward-looking consensus for one company. For what the company actually reported, use Financials; for forward consensus compared across a peer set, build a Grid.

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How to use it

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What you get

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The six sections

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How the rating scale reads

The average recommendation is scored on a 1-5 scale, with a plain-language label so you don’t have to interpret the number: 1.5 or lower = Strong Buy, up to 2.5 = Buy, up to 3.5 = Hold, up to 4.5 = Sell, and above 4.5 = Strong Sell. The Overview shows both the current average and the 12-month trend of how many analysts sit in each bucket.

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Which metrics have consensus

The searchable metric selector covers, grouped by Income, Expenses, and Balance Sheet:

• Income — EPS (GAAP and Adjusted), Revenue, EBIT, EBITDA, Net Income.
• Expenses — COGS, SG&A, G&AE, D&A.
• Balance Sheet — NAV, Current Assets, Current Liabilities, Shareholder Equity.

For each metric you get the consensus Mean, the Historically Weighted Estimate, and the reported Actual, across both annual and quarterly fiscal periods.

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Key controls and outputs

• Section tab bar — move between the six sections; the active one is captured in a shareable link.
• Metric selector — fuzzy-searchable picker for the metric in Detailed Viewer and Surprises.
• Annual / Quarterly toggle — switch the period basis (default differs by section).
• Show Chart switch — show or hide the trend or price-target chart above the table.
• Broker filter — focus Recent Analyst Estimates on a single firm, with per-broker estimate counts.
• Add to AI Chat / Ctrl+K — send a table into the AI assistant. Add to AI Chat is a button on Detailed Viewer, Surprises, Price Target History, and Firm Rating Revisions; Ctrl+K sends a cell selection plus its full table from any section’s table.
• Bookmark to Data Room — save any table to a Data Room folder for later reference.

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Data & sources

• LSEG IBES & Broker Estimates powers the consensus and broker datasets: the financial estimates (EPS GAAP and Adjusted, Revenue, EBIT, EBITDA, Net Income, COGS, SG&A, G&AE, D&A, NAV, Current Assets, Current Liabilities, Shareholder Equity), the Historically Weighted Estimate (LSEG’s accuracy-oriented alternative to the simple mean consensus), the price targets (high / mean / median / low), the buy/hold/sell recommendation counts and average rating, the long-term growth estimates, and the individual broker/analyst recommendations and target prices. This is the source named in the on-screen table footnote as “Estimates: LSEG IBES & Broker Estimates.”
• Analyst rating-revisions feed supplies the Firm Rating Revisions section — the upgrades, downgrades, initiations, reiterations and maintains. This comes from a separate analyst-ratings data feed, not from LSEG.
• Market price data supplies the actual historical closing prices overlaid on the Price Target History chart, drawn from the platform’s market price data.

Estimates also sits within the broader Data Viewer data stack — FactSet standardized fundamentals power Financials & Ratios and MSCI ESG powers ESG scoring — so you always know which dataset you’re reading.

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Tips & best practices

• Start on Overview, then drill in. The Overview summary gives you the rating, the analyst count, and the target range in one look; from there open Detailed Viewer or Surprises for the metric you care about.
• Mind the period default. Detailed Viewer opens on Annual and Surprises opens on Quarterly — flip the toggle when you want the other basis.
• Watch the Historically Weighted Estimate, not just the Mean. It’s LSEG’s accuracy-oriented alternative to the simple Mean, so comparing the two is a useful tie-breaker before earnings.
• Use Surprises to set expectations. A long run of BEATs (or MISSes) tells you how the company tends to guide and report relative to consensus, which sharpens an earnings preview.
• Read the price-target chart against the dashed price line. When targets sit well above or below the actual close, the overlay shows whether the sell-side has been ahead of or behind the stock.
• Let the AI read the table. Use Add to AI Chat to ask “is consensus revenue trending up or down for next year?” or “summarize the recent rating changes” against the exact figures on screen.

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Limits & things to know

• History windows are capped per section. The Recommendation Trend chart shows the last 12 months (one reading per month); the estimate trend line chart shows the last 8 fiscal periods; the Price Target History chart shows the last 12 unique dates.
• Surprises shows reported periods only. Periods without a reported actual are not listed.
• Some contributors are masked. Brokers or analysts whose identities are restricted by upstream data entitlements appear as “Undisclosed.”
• Estimate values are in millions unless otherwise noted — EPS and per-share or percentage figures excepted.
• Coverage depends on the company. The number of contributing brokers and the length of history follow the analyst coverage for that specific ticker, so smaller or less-covered names may be sparse, and some metrics may have no estimates at all.
• Long-term growth lives in one place. In the live surface, the analyst long-term growth rate appears only as a column inside Price Target History; there is no standalone long-term-growth or historical-estimates view.
• Sections respond to the available data. A section shows a clear message when a company has no estimates, broker, surprise, or rating-change data.

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Availability

Estimates is available with normal Data Viewer access — there’s no separate per-section entitlement. The only content that varies is data-driven: sections populate based on the company’s analyst coverage, and individual broker names may be hidden as “Undisclosed” due to upstream data entitlements.

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Works with other features

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Example workflow

Goal: build an earnings preview on one stock, then extend the read to its peers and a written deliverable.

1. Open the ticker in the Data Viewer and go to Estimates. The Overview gives you the average rating, the buy/hold/sell tally, and the latest target range at a glance.
2. Open Detailed Viewer, pick Revenue, and read the consensus Mean and Historically Weighted Estimate for the upcoming periods. Switch the metric to EPS to see the GAAP and Adjusted forecasts side by side, and flip to Quarterly for the next print.
3. Go to Surprises to see whether the company tends to BEAT or MISS — a run of beats tells you how conservatively it guides.
4. Open Price Target History to judge whether the sell-side has been ahead of or behind the stock, then scan Recent Analyst Estimates to find the most bullish and bearish brokers and their targets.
5. Check Firm Rating Revisions for any recent upgrades or downgrades that might move sentiment into the print.
6. Press Add to AI Chat on the consensus table and ask Chat, “Is consensus EPS rising or falling into next quarter, and what’s the recent rating trend?” to pull it together against the exact numbers.
7. Build a Grid across the stock’s peers with consensus revenue, EPS, and rating columns to see how the group is positioned, then generate a Report so the earnings preview is grounded in the same estimates.

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FAQ

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Getting help

For help using Estimates or to talk through an earnings-preview or valuation workflow, reach AllMind support through the in-app support option or your account team. For a guided walkthrough, book a session from the Help link in the top navigation.