Forecast earnings compared to Actual earnings

[zac]

Ive been trying to work out Intrinsic Values for a whole stack of companies and because current IV and future values rely on forecast earnings the results can be a fair bit off.
Obviously companies want to make the company look attractive to sharebuyers/holders etc so the figures could be skewed.

Is there a way to find out actual EPS compared to forecast EPS for example?
Im just thinking if a company is rather accurate historically it may help to forsee which have reliable figures etc.

Also would this be of value or just a waste of time?
Im thinking if a trend can be seen in the error it will help determine a realistic value.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

I think they try to be pretty accurate because they are aware investors and traders will punish the SP hard if forecast > actual.

There are some websites that publish a statistic called "history of disappointing the market". Can't remember where I saw it, maybe yahoo finance or etrade. Other than that, Lincoln Indicators would have it for a fee.

 

[zac]

ah ok cheers,
It would be nice to have that data.
Ive just noticed that some companies have obscurely high EPS and doesnt make sense with their historic data and current business model.

I run a spreadsheet, would be nice to graph actual and predicted.

I was just working out RMD Resmed and the 2013 forecast EPS and IV seems incosistently high.
RMD isnt the only company though.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Yes it was etrade. The chart is labeled "does this company have a history of surprising the market?" under "forecast earnings trends".

They also give updates on earnings estimates, some of which are quite recent, say 7 days ago.

Etrdaes data seems to come from morningstar so you could try there.