Financial Sources Breakdown
Stock Analysis uses three different data providers for financial statement data (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement).
These are the key differences between them:
| Data Provider | Update speed | Coverage | History | Accuracy |
| S&P Capital IQ | Right after earnings | Global | 10 Years | Very High |
| Nasdaq Data Link | After 10Q/10K filed | US Only | 30+ Years | Very High |
| Financial Modeling Prep | Varies | Global | 40+ Years | High |
Starting end of July, 2024, S&P Capital IQ is the default data provider site-wide at the end of July, 2024.
It is the most accurate and most up to date of all three providers. In fact, they provide enterprise-grade data and can be considered to be the gold standard of data accuracy.
They also update their financial data very quickly after earnings, so we will have fresh numbers much faster than most other finance sites.
However, the main drawback with S&P data is that they only allow us to show 5 years of financial history for free users and up to 10 years of history for paid subscribers.
In addition, S&P Capital IQ does not allow exports.
How exports are handled now
Since export is one of the signature features of the site, we have ensured that the export buttons on the site still work.
For US stocks, exported financials will come from Nasdaq Data Link. For non-US stocks, the exported financials will come from Financial Modeling Prep.
Keep in mind that this may cause a mismatch between the data you see on the page and the data you see in the export file.
There can also be differences in the names of the line items shown in the financial statements.
Data source selector
We have also added dropdowns to the financial statements where you can switch between the available data sources and compare them.
This can also be useful when you need more than 10 years of history, then you can switch to an alternative data source that doesn't limit the financial history to 10 years.
To use this, click "Data Source" above the financial statement tables.
More export limitations
Moving forward, some data points will not be available for exporting from the stock screener, watchlist and stock lists because these data points come from S&P Global.
You will still be able to export the stock symbols and some other data points.