Occasionally (more often than it should be) the most recent earnings are not reported for a stock, although earnings for other dates show up correctly. Is this "normal" for everyone? Reloading the chart history doesn't help.

In the attachment, I've included an example for the symbol BG. Fidelity is always the streaming data provider. Earnings for 10/31/2018 are reported correctly on the Fidelity website, just not in WL.

GLDD is just another example I just noticed (today) without its most recent earnings showing in WL.

Try to close all charts with BG, delete the BG.WLF file which contains the fundamental data (c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Fidelity Investments\WealthLabPro\1.0.0.0\Data\ ...), and then updating the Fidelity fundamental provider (Update DataSet). If still missing you might want to contact Fidelity.

Do I need to restart WL after doing that? You're suggesting many of my *.WLF files many be corrupted, but I should run the above test to be sure?

I didn't realize that the streaming provider was affected by corrupted data files produced by the static provider. It would be best if the streaming code wasn't dependent on the static code's job; otherwise, you build in "side effects".

For security, just close all the tools that make use of the fundamental data for the symbol. A restart is not required.

Neither static nor streaming providers are at play here. It's the F. fundamental provider (hence the .WLF file extension in a folder separate from the FidelityStaticProvider with its .WL files).

Are only BG and GOLD affected?

Thanks for the clarification. So the Fidelity fundamental provider is responsible for "integrating" both streaming and static functions? Well, that's the best way to do it because then it has to deal with its internal contingency between its streaming data reader and its static data writer to the disk. That contingency between to asynchronous tasks (reader and writer) is tricky to manage. Perhaps .NET framework has a threads-safe solution for reader-writer contingency, but it may not. This is a tricky problem to code, which is probably why the .WLF files get corrupted. Transaction-oriented databases have to deal with contingency all the time; and sometime they have to back out from confirming a transaction. :(

QUOTE:
Are only BG and GOLD affected?

Oh no. It's somewhat common. I actually thought about using a different fundamental provider altogether because of this problem. I just noticed another one, CYOU. And those three I just noticed today.

I'm not convinced that this is a "file corruption".

1. Could you elaborate re: how common this is? I mean, has it started happening recently or did you notice some reporting lag between the F. website and F. fundamental provider when it comes to earnings?

2. Does the workaround in post #2 alleviate the problem?

I just called Fidelity, and they can also reproduce the most-recent earnings reporting problem for BG, GOLD, CYOU on their own WL client. And these are just examples; I'm sure there are many others.

Typically, the earnings will eventually show up after enough bars. I'm surprised the earnings value hasn't shown up after eight daily bars for BG; that is unusual. I can't say if this is a client problem or a server problem, but it's likely some kind of "contingency problem" between client and server, which explains the somewhat random behavior.

I can't explain why it's a problem for some stocks and not others, but it's reproducible with my WL client and Fidelity's WL client with the same set of stocks. So there's something special with select stocks that creates delayed earnings reporting in WL.

QUOTE:
... how common this is? I mean, has it started happening recently or did you notice some reporting lag between the F. website and F. fundamental provider when it comes to earnings?

Well, perhaps 1 out of 40 stocks have this problem, but it eventually goes away after enough days go by. My question is, "Is it always the same stocks that report earnings a couple days late?" I don't know.

The problem is an old problem as far as I know. I trade rather than invest, so earnings isn't that important to me (so I haven't paid that much attention). But if the P/E ratio is above 70, I may not even want to trade that stock.

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Does the workaround in post #2 alleviate the problem?

I serious doubt Fidelity's WL client even had *.WLF files for these particular stocks when they reproduced the late earnings reporting problem on their system. So the behavior is independent of the *.WLF files. It's a client/server issue with particular stocks. I wish I knew why these problem stocks are "special". Perhaps the fundamental server simply receives earnings reports late for specific stocks, but I'm only guessing. None of the problem stocks are large cap or mega cap stocks.

If an earnings shows up late then this looks like a server-side issue.

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If an earnings shows up late then this looks like a server-side issue.

You might be right. What makes me think it's a server-side issue is the problem only shows up for micro cap, small cap, and mid cap stocks. I'm thinking the server gets earnings updates to large and mega cap stocks each day, but not the mid cap and smaller stocks. That decreases server load, but it puts WL users investing in these smaller stocks at a disadvantage.

The P/E ratio (ttm) doesn't change that much from quarter to quarter, so if earnings reporting is ten days late, a trader like me doesn't care too much. But an investor buying mid cap stocks (and smaller) would care. I've known about the problem for sometime; I just haven't said anything.

But the people at Fidelity I talked to didn't seem to know about the problem.

Hmm, just stumbled upon this (and the same issue was fixed 4 years ago):

Fundamental Data Reporting Lag Consequences

@Cone, do you think it's back?

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…, do you think it's back?

I don't think it's the same.

I developed a script at the time of that other thread to find earnings lag. When I run it now against an S&P 500 portfolio, there are only two stocks having earnings more than 98 calendar days back, COL(106 days) and HP(107), Earnings data on the Fidelity site shows earnings dates in July so these two seem as up-to-date as they can be. In 2014, many stocks were late, while the Fidelity site showed more current earnings than WL.