Hi WLPro's,

Me again. One of my favorite valuation metrics is Enterprise Value (EV). It is much more useful than Market Cap for the purposes of assessing ratios like earnings/EBITDA/cash-flow yield, price/revenue, etc. Unfortunately it appears there is insufficient data available via the Fidelity Fundamental Provider to calculate EV. The Fidelity Fundamental documentation indicates that EV is calculated as follows:

QUOTE:
Enterprise Value (EV)
A measure of a company's value, often used as an alternative to straightforward market capitalization.
Some analyst use this value as the theoretical takeover price in the event of a buyout an acquirer would
absorb the companies debt service, but would gain its cash holdings:
Enterprise Value (EV) = (Shares Outstanding*Current Stock Price) + Total Debt – Total Cash.

The problem is that "Total Debt" is not one of the provided fundamental items. It does provide "Long Term Debt" but does not provide "Short Term Debt", so "Total Debt" cannot even be calculated. Being that they included EV in the documentation I'm assuming they intended to provide the reader with the ability to actually calculate it, and the missing data item is an oversight.

Who should I address this question to?

Thanks,
Craig

The YCharts provider has a fundamental called "[yc] enterprise_value." I don't know if they use the formula you cite.

The YCharts' EV formula is:

QUOTE:
Enterprise Value = Market Capitalization + Current Portion of Long Term Debt + Notes Payable + Long Term Debt + Book Value of Preferred Stock + Book Value of Minority Interest - Cash and Cash Equivalents

As for a DIY EV, you could give Morningstar provider from MS123 Fundamental/News providers a try:

Morningstar Fundamental Provider

It has all the components required. The item names of interest are: "[ms] Cash & Short-Term Investments", "[ms] Long-Term Debt", "[ms] Short-Term Debt", "[ms] Shares Mil".

Thanks Gents!

The problem with the MS provider is that it's annual-only. I need this information quarterly, as close as possible to the reporting date. Being that I'm already paying Fidelity, I'd prefer to get it from them rather than paying Y-charts for their data. I'll continue to search around for a free quarterly source, otherwise I may need to come up with a close approximation (maybe something like mkt cap + long debt + current liab's - cash). The goal is to get close to the buyout price of the company, after which it would have no-debt/no-cash, i.e. clean slate.

Anyway, thanks again.

Craig

Hi Eugene,

I forgot to ask, who should I direct my question to regarding whether the Fidelity fundamental data source has "total debt" and/or "short term debt" ? I'm wondering if it's available to be downloaded but the provider wasn't programmed to capture it.

Thanks,
Craig

Craig,

I don't think it makes sense to "hide" some data from the provider, it may not be available. Please call into Fidelity phone support. I don't have a contact but Cone may know it better.

Fidelity Fundamental data doesn't have total cash either, The "cash" item is QoQ net change in cash, so it's not appropriate for the EV calculation. The only avenue [Fidelity Fundamental data] is for all interested Fidelity customers to call Active Trader support for Wealth-Lab Pro and request the items that are missing. We identified this deficiency for EV years ago, but it still hasn't been added/changed.

EV might be available for screens at Fidelity.com, although that won't help with backtesting :(

Hi Cone,

Thanks for the follow up. I spoke with Active Trader "support". Although the person I spoke with was friendly and empathetic, it was a waste of time.

I am now looking into getting this data from YCharts or Quandl. I am leaning towards the Zack's dataset on Quandl as I really dislike the whole monthly data quota concept on Ycharts, but haven't decided yet. If I choose Quandl then I'll need to figure out how to load that data into WLP, but I'll cross that bridge later.

Regards,
Craig

Craig,

The Zacks fundamental provider currently does not support the data item(s) you're looking for. They're a later addition to their extensive collection of fundamental data on Quandl website. If you decide to utilize it, please point me at what Zacks dataset(s) are required for your task and I'll see what can be done.