I/B/E/S: analyst estimates and actuals (licensed)

Access confirmed via a licensed WRDS session

I/B/E/S is a licensed commercial dataset (LSEG / Refinitiv, reached for most academics through WRDS). The keystone query SELECT * FROM ibes.act_epsint LIMIT 1 was run against the live dataset through a licensed WRDS session on 2026-06-09, so this page carries the amber “Access confirmed (licensed)” badge. Reproducing it requires your own WRDS account and your institution’s I/B/E/S entitlement (licensed, not open).

I/B/E/S (Institutional Brokers’ Estimate System) is the long-running panel of sell-side analyst forecasts: per-analyst (Detail) and consensus (Summary) estimates of earnings per share and other measures, plus recommendations, price targets, and matched “street” actuals. It is the standard source for analyst expectations, forecast dispersion, and earnings surprises in empirical finance. Papers we distill use it for analyst coverage and forecast measures, for example Ben-Rephael, Carlin, Da & Israelsen and Cookson, Niessner & Schiller.

• Cost: licensed, subscription. No free tier. Most academics reach it through an institutional WRDS license.
• Vendor: LSEG / Refinitiv (the dataset passed through Thomson Reuters and Refinitiv ownership; older citations say Thomson Financial / Thomson Reuters).
• Coverage: US (ibes US files) and international (epsint) equities, from the mid-1970s for US EPS; per-analyst detail, consensus summary, actuals, recommendations, and price targets.

Access (when licensed)

• Through WRDS (the usual path). The ibes libraries on WRDS: Summary statistics (ibes.statsum_epsus), Detail history (ibes.det_epsus), actuals (ibes.actu_epsus), recommendations (ibes.recddet), and the broker/analyst translation files. Query through a licensed WRDS session exactly as for CRSP and Compustat; see the WRDS page for the connection pattern.
• Direct from LSEG / Refinitiv. Through Refinitiv Workspace / a data feed, for institutions that license I/B/E/S directly rather than via WRDS.
• Credentials are required either way. Keep them in .env, never hard-coded.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

These are the failure modes to expect; they are documented from observed pipeline behavior.

• Summary vs Detail are different objects. The Summary file is the consensus snapshot computed on each month’s “statistical period” cutoff; the Detail file is the per-analyst estimate history. Do not rebuild a consensus from Detail and expect it to equal Summary: the cutoffs, the included estimates, and the staleness rules differ.
• Split adjustment and rounding corrupt small-cap EPS. I/B/E/S historically stored estimates on a split-adjusted basis rounded to the cent, so for high-split or low-price stocks the adjusted EPS can round to zero or flip sign. Where possible work from unadjusted values and apply the CRSP cumulative adjustment factor yourself, and be wary of tiny denominators.
• “Street” actuals are not GAAP and not Compustat. I/B/E/S actuals are the analyst-basis (“street”) earnings that exclude items analysts deem non-recurring; they do not equal Compustat GAAP EPS. Use the I/B/E/S actual, not a Compustat figure, when computing a surprise against an I/B/E/S forecast, or the surprise is mismatched at the numerator.
• Forecast period indicator (FPI) and measure must be filtered. A single permno-month carries many rows: FY1/FY2 annual, quarterly, long-term growth, and non-EPS measures (sales, CFPS, EBITDA). Always filter fpi and measure explicitly; an unfiltered pull mixes horizons and metrics.
• Look-ahead bias from review and activation dates. Use the estimate’s announce/review and activation dates, not just the statistical period, to know what was actually observable as-of a date. The Summary file’s “as-of” is the cutoff date, not the date the underlying estimates became public.
• Historical revisions and the anonymity recoding. I/B/E/S has restated parts of its history (the well-documented late-1990s/2000s changes), and analyst identities are masked codes that have been recoded over time; a broker or analyst code is not a stable cross-vintage key. Pin the data vintage.
• Identifiers are CUSIP-based and need linking. I/B/E/S keys on its own ticker plus historical CUSIP, not PERMNO or GVKEY; join through the WRDS-supplied I/B/E/S-CRSP link (or iclink) rather than a naive CUSIP merge, and respect that CUSIPs are reused over time.
• US vs international files are separate. The US (epsus) and international (epsint) files have different conventions and currencies; do not pool them without aligning currency and measure definitions.

Reference: key WRDS I/B/E/S tables

Table	What it holds
ibes.statsum_epsus	Consensus Summary statistics (mean/median/stdev, count)
ibes.det_epsus	Detail: individual analyst EPS estimates
ibes.actu_epsus	Reported “street” actuals matched to estimates
ibes.recddet	Analyst recommendations (detail)
ibes.id / link files	Identifier and broker/analyst translation tables

Citation

Cite the provider and the access route, e.g.: I/B/E/S, LSEG / Refinitiv, accessed via WRDS, YYYY-MM-DD. State whether estimates are split-adjusted or unadjusted, the FPI and measure used, and the data vintage.