It seems like the fundamentals in some cases are wildly off. For instance, its showing LRCX with cash of $228mm, liabilities of $1022mm, and ebit of $778mm. None of these numbers are correct (well, the $778mm was correct: but over a year ago).

-James

For issues with Fidelity data please contact Fidelity.

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Hmm, cash and liabilities seem to agree with Google Finance and ebit with Yahoo?

There are a few possibilities with errors in Fundamental data:

1. Fundamental provider has bad data.
- There are lots of subcategories here (missing data, out-of-sequence data, bad dates, etc.), but as Eugene indicated, we at MS123 aren't able to help with these. Call them in to Fidelity Support, and be specific.

That noted, WLP5 has a nice visualization of fundamental data reports. When you plot the data, the vertical lines indicate the date of the report. In the case of LRCX, it's easy to tell that all data from April 07 to 08 is missing (no vertical lines), consequently any current annual ratio will be inaccurate due to missing data.

2. Provider has not updated all the Financial data for the most-recent quarter.
- Often is the case in which the Fundamental Provider does not have all the updates for the MRQ. In Wealth-Lab 5, fundamental data is refreshed for every update for 6 weeks following the most recent quarterly report to ensure that WLP gets all of the data as soon as it's available from the provider. Also, each data is tagged with the FY/FQ to which it belongs.

3. Wealth-Lab error in fundamental ratio calculation
- We'll get these fixed ASAP!


Something that perhaps we can do is provide a "Fundamental Data Checker" script. The only way that I can think of to get a handle on fundamental data errors is to check the data sequence and generate a list of symbols with errors. At least then you could check the list to exclude it from Fundamental Analysis.

In the meantime, there's a nice little script example in the QuickRef for FundamentalDataItems. If you run that on LRCX, the problem becomes apparent with that one. Here are the 'assets' results:

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Notice how the dates for the data items are presumably incorrect for (FY/FQ) 2007/4, 2008/1, and 2008/2, but cross checking the Y! Quarterly Balance Sheet shows that the numbers match their report - just not the dates.

Here's a first shot at a fundamental data checker. Use the FundamentalSequenceCheck routine in any script that access fundamental data.

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Thanks! Very quick response here. Thanks again.

You're welcome.

I got a big kick out of your Tech Ticker interview last week in which you said something to the effect that 'as a professional, I don't care if the market goes up or down, I just want volatility...but I prefer it to go up because it makes everyone on the street around here happier.'

Thanks. Its sort of unreal the amount of grief I get on message boards for comments like that. I much prefer sitting at home and playing with the new Wealth-lab!