# Why consensus estimates differ from site to site

One company, several consensus EPS figures. Who collects the estimates, which analysts count, GAAP or adjusted, fiscal year, currency, and how a beat is scored.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/why-consensus-estimates-differ · background to Fundamental Data & Stock Research Platforms*

**Answer:** Because a consensus is a choice of inputs, not a fact. Four aggregators collect sell-side forecasts, LSEG I/B/E/S, FactSet, S&P Global and Zacks, and each decides which analysts count, how old an estimate may be, which accounting basis wins and whether to take the mean or the median. Websites then license one of them and pick GAAP or adjusted, fiscal or calendar years and a currency. The basis alone can halve the number.

## How it works

A consensus estimate is assembled in three layers, and each layer makes choices.

**Analysts** at banks and brokers publish forecasts of a company's earnings per share, revenue and
other lines, inside research notes and models. Each analyst picks a basis — usually the company's
own adjusted figure, sometimes GAAP — and revises on their own timetable.

**Collectors** gather those forecasts under contributor agreements and turn them into one number.
Four names do most of this: LSEG's I/B/E/S, FactSet, S&P Global (its Capital IQ estimates, plus
Visible Alpha, which it bought in 2024, as
[where research terminals get their data](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/where-research-terminals-get-their-data)
describes) and Zacks. Each decides which forecasts count, how old one may be, which accounting
basis is the default, and whether the headline is a mean or a median.

**Sites** license one collector's output and then choose again: which basis to display, fiscal or
calendar years, the reporting currency or the listing's, and how often to refresh. A broker's
research tab is a site in this sense. Fidelity's research centre, for one, publishes a page on the
Refinitiv I/B/E/S consensus it shows, describing I/B/E/S as fed by more than 900 contributing
brokers.

Two sites showing different consensus figures for the same quarter are usually not wrong. They are
answering slightly different questions.

## Who supplies which site

What each product says about its estimates, read on 9 October 2026. *Not documented* means the
vendor's public pages do not say.

| Site | Supplier, in its own words | Basis shown |
|---|---|---|
| Yahoo Finance | "EPS and revenue estimates & actuals … provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence" | Both: a GAAP / Normalized switch on each Analysis table |
| [Stock Analysis](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/stockanalysis) | "financial forecasts are provided by S&P Global" | "EPS and Forward PE are based on non-GAAP adjusted numbers" |
| [Koyfin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/koyfin) | "consensus estimates and valuation are sourced from S&P Capital IQ" | Mostly adjusted; items that are not are labelled GAAP. Its earnings history offers "EPS" and "EPS GAAP" separately |
| [TIKR](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tikr) | S&P Global Capital IQ, named in its help centre | Sell-side consensus, adjusted, non-GAAP; shows how many analysts contributed, never which |
| Zacks | Its own consensus, the business it was founded on in 1978 | EPS before non-recurring items, after Zacks' own adjustments to each estimate |
| [Finnhub](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/finnhub) | No collector named. Estimates "sourced from both sell-side and buy-side analysts", and `epsAvg` is "Average EPS estimates including Finnhub's proprietary estimates" | Earnings calendar EPS and revenue are non-GAAP |
| [Financial Modeling Prep](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/financial-modeling-prep) | No collector named: the API works "by collecting forecasts from leading financial analysts" | Not documented |

Four of the seven resell S&P Global. That narrows the disagreement among them to basis, period
and refresh timing — and still does not remove it. On 9 October 2026 Yahoo's Normalized consensus
for Novo Nordisk's 2026 EPS was 22.53 kroner from 8 analysts, while Stock Analysis, also crediting
S&P Global, showed 21.56 kroner on its adjusted basis. Neither page says which of the supplier's EPS
measures it uses.

## GAAP, adjusted and the company's own definition

The biggest gap is usually the basis, and the rule that creates it is Regulation G. A US company
that publishes a non-GAAP measure — adjusted EPS, say — must present the most directly comparable
GAAP measure alongside it and a reconciliation between the two. So both numbers are always public,
and analysts are free to forecast either. Where a company guides only on its adjusted figure, as
AbbVie does below, most analysts forecast that one. The [non-GAAP](https://stockmarketstack.com/glossary/non-gaap) entry covers
the definitions.

The collectors resolve the split by majority. FactSet groups estimates into consensus classes by
methodology and computes "one class at a time because creating an average across different classes
can be misleading". LSEG says I/B/E/S actuals "align reported company results with the operating or
comparable basis used by the majority of contributing analysts". Zacks adjusts estimates "to include
or exclude selected non-recurring (NRI) items" to reach its consensus of EPS before non-recurring
items.

AbbVie shows the size of it. Its release for the fourth quarter of 2025, furnished on 4 February
2026, reported diluted EPS of $1.02 on a GAAP basis and adjusted diluted EPS of $2.71, with the
reconciliation between them, and gave 2026 guidance only for adjusted diluted EPS. On 9 October
2026, for the quarter to 30 September 2026:

| Source | EPS consensus | Analysts or estimates |
|---|---|---|
| Yahoo Finance, GAAP | $2.33 | 4 |
| Yahoo Finance, Normalized | $3.81 | 18 |
| Zacks | $3.83 | 7 |

For full-year 2026 Yahoo showed $7.89 GAAP from 11 analysts and $14.00 Normalized from 27, Stock
Analysis $14.00 adjusted, and Zacks $14.02 from 10 estimates. The three adjusted figures agree to
within two cents; the GAAP figure is a different quantity, forecast by a minority of analysts.

Yahoo's switch has a default, and it is not the same for every stock. The Apple page served on 9
October 2026 opened on GAAP; the AbbVie and Novo Nordisk pages opened on Normalized. For Apple it
hardly matters — $8.82 against $8.83 for fiscal 2026. For AbbVie the default decides whether the
headline is $7.89 or $14.00.

## Which analysts, and how old their numbers are

Each collector has its own contributor list, so the panel differs before any rule is applied: that
is why AbbVie's quarter counts 18 analysts on one site and 7 estimates on another. Then each
decides when an estimate is too old to count.

- **FactSet**, which describes its point-in-time database as fed by over 800 contributors, builds
  its default consensus from estimates "validated via broker research within the past 100 days",
  and its point-in-time product takes the consensus as of local midnight for each
  company, so nothing entered after midnight counts toward that day.
- **LSEG** publishes a plain mean and, separately, StarMine SmartEstimates, which first exclude
  outliers, "estimates older than 4 months, and stale pre-revision figures", then weight what is
  left by recency and each analyst's track record. An "LSEG consensus" can be either.
- **Zacks** drops "all individual estimates made prior to the guidance that fall outside of its
  range" once a company issues guidance, and keeps everything made after it.
- **Finnhub** counts buy-side analysts and its own estimates alongside the sell side.

Regulation FD is what makes a guidance-date rule workable. A company that tells a broker, an
adviser or a fund material nonpublic information has to make it public at the same moment if the
disclosure was intentional, or promptly if not. Guidance is therefore a public, dated event, and a
collector can sort estimates into before and after it.

The moment matters as much as the rule. Yahoo's EPS trend table shows its consensus as it stood 7,
30, 60 and 90 days earlier; AbbVie's current quarter moved from $3.86 to $3.81 over those 90 days. A
site that refreshes daily and one that caches for a week will disagree by however far the
estimates moved in between, most of all in the weeks around a report, when revisions bunch.

## Fiscal years, currencies and what "per share" means

**Fiscal years.** "Current year" is the company's fiscal year unless a site says otherwise. On 9
October 2026 Yahoo labelled Apple's year ending 30 September 2026 and Broadcom's ending 31 October
2026 both "Current Year (2026)". A source that converts to calendar years splices quarters from two
fiscal years into one figure. Koyfin lets you choose "between fiscal and calendar periods"; check
which one a site is on before setting two side by side.

**Currency.** Collectors store an estimate in the currency it was made in and convert on request:
FactSet's manual lists a currency parameter and a separate estimate-currency flag for securities
whose local currency differs from the estimates'. Novo Nordisk, listed in New York as an ADR, shows
how far apart that leaves the sites. On 9 October 2026 its 2026 EPS consensus was 22.53 on Yahoo,
labelled "Currency in DKK", and 21.56 on Stock Analysis, which notes "Financial currency is DKK".
Zacks showed 3.53, with no currency label on the table, beside the ADR's $38.18 dollar quote; its
revenue consensus of 46.10 billion, against Stock Analysis's 300.79 billion kroner, can only be in
dollars. A forward P/E computed from a dollar price over a krone EPS is wrong by the exchange rate.

## Mean, median, and how a beat is scored

The headline consensus is a mean on most sites. Yahoo calls it "Avg. Estimate"; Koyfin says its main
figures are "the average of consensus" and offers median, high and low as extra columns; LSEG
measures "beats and misses using comparable actuals against consensus mean estimates". FactSet's
surprise report lets the user choose mean, median, high or low. With twenty forecasts the mean and
the median are close; with four, one outlier moves the mean a long way.

The actual is a choice too. LSEG adjusts actuals "to the consensus basis where reported figures
contain unusual, one-time or non-comparable items". FactSet scores US, Japanese and Australian
surprises against the company's reported actual, and the rest of the world — mainly Europe —
against the median of the post-event consensus, the "Broker Actual". That manual was last updated
in June 2015; FactSet's point-in-time page, read on 9 October 2026, still describes the same 100-day
default consensus window.

So a beat is a comparison of two chosen numbers. On Yahoo's AbbVie page, the fourth quarter of 2025
was a 2.16% beat on Normalized — $2.71 against $2.65 — and a 64.51% miss on GAAP — $1.02 against
$2.87. Percent surprise misbehaves near zero as well: for the third quarter of 2025 the GAAP
consensus was −$1.19, the GAAP actual $0.10, and the page printed a 108.40% surprise. What any
surprise means for the share price is outside what these numbers describe.

## What you can do about it

**Find the supplier before comparing.** Look for a data-providers page, a footnote or a help
article. If two sites resell the same collector, a difference is basis, period or timing; if they
resell different collectors, the panels differ as well and the figures may never match.

**Put the bases side by side.** Where a site has a GAAP / adjusted switch, read both. Otherwise take
the company's own reconciliation — the table Regulation G requires in the earnings release — and
check which of its lines the consensus is closest to. An adjusted consensus should be compared with
the adjusted actual in that release, and a GAAP one with the GAAP actual.

**Check the period end, not the year label.** Compare the fiscal period end dates; if one source
uses calendar years, convert the other or do not compare.

**Check the currency and the share.** For a foreign company, look for the currency label on the
estimates table rather than the quote, and for an ADR, the ratio to ordinary shares.

**Look at the analyst count and the spread.** Four estimates with a wide high-low range is a
different kind of number from thirty in a tight one. A GAAP consensus from a handful of analysts on a
company that guides on an adjusted basis is a minority view, not the market's expectation.

**Record which consensus you used.** If you keep estimates or surprises in a spreadsheet or a
model, store the supplier, the basis, the period end, the currency and the date you read it with
each number. [Getting an earnings calendar as data](https://stockmarketstack.com/how-to/get-an-earnings-calendar-as-data) covers
the API fields, several of which document none of these.

## Tools this bears on

- [TIKR](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/tikr.md) — Capital IQ financials and Wall Street estimates on 100,000+ global stocks.
- [Koyfin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/koyfin.md) — A browser research terminal for global equities, funds, macro and estimates.
- [Stock Analysis](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/stockanalysis.md) — Five years of financials and a working screener, free and without an account.
- [Finnhub](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/finnhub.md) — Real-time US quotes and a live trade stream on a free key. OHLC candles are not free.
- [Financial Modeling Prep](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/financial-modeling-prep.md) — Financial statements, ratios and filings for 70,000+ securities across 60+ exchanges.

## FAQ

### Why is the consensus EPS on Yahoo Finance different from Zacks?

They come from different collectors. Yahoo licenses its estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence; Zacks builds its own consensus, adjusts analysts' figures to earnings before non-recurring items and drops pre-guidance estimates that fall outside a company's guidance range. On 9 October 2026 AbbVie's current-quarter EPS consensus was 3.81 dollars from 18 analysts on Yahoo's Normalized view and 3.83 dollars from 7 estimates on Zacks.

### Is consensus EPS GAAP or adjusted?

Usually adjusted, because most sell-side analysts forecast the company's own adjusted figure, and the big collectors keep only the estimates on the basis most analysts use. Some sites show both. On 9 October 2026 Yahoo's GAAP consensus for AbbVie's 2026 EPS was 7.89 dollars from 11 analysts, and its Normalized consensus 14.00 dollars from 27.

### Who supplies analyst estimates to Yahoo Finance, Koyfin, TIKR and Stock Analysis?

S&P Global, on each site's own documentation, read on 9 October 2026. Yahoo credits S&P Global Market Intelligence for EPS and revenue estimates and actuals, Stock Analysis credits it for forecasts, and Koyfin and TIKR name S&P Capital IQ. A shared supplier does not guarantee a shared number, because each site still picks the basis, the period and the moment it refreshes.

### Did the company beat or miss earnings?

Only relative to a stated consensus on a stated basis. AbbVie's fourth quarter of 2025 was a 2.16% beat against Yahoo's Normalized consensus and a 64.51% miss against its GAAP one, on the same page, because the company reported 2.71 dollars of adjusted EPS and 1.02 dollars of GAAP EPS. The page does not say what a beat means for the stock, and neither does this one.

### Why does the number of analysts differ between sites?

Each collector has its own contributor agreements, and each applies its own exclusions — stale estimates, estimates on a minority accounting basis, estimates made before new guidance. A site may also count analysts per measure, so the EPS count and the revenue count for one quarter often differ on the same page.

## Sources

1. [Zacks Data on WRDS, one-sheet](https://wrds-www.wharton.upenn.edu/documents/1174/Zacks-One-Sheet.pdf) — Wharton Research Data Services, read 2026-10-09
2. [I/B/E/S Actuals](https://www.lseg.com/en/data-catalogue/company-data/ibes-estimates/actuals) — LSEG, read 2026-10-09
3. [I/B/E/S Estimate Analytics](https://www.lseg.com/en/data-catalogue/company-data/ibes-estimates/estimate-analytics) — LSEG, read 2026-10-09
4. [Company data, frequently asked questions](https://www.lseg.com/en/data-catalogue/company-data) — LSEG, read 2026-10-09
5. [F.EstimatesOnDemand, estimates methodology and report reference (updated June 2015)](https://go.factset.com/hubfs/Website_Downloads/Statistical%20Package%20Integration/Docs%203.0/estimates-ondemand.pdf) — FactSet Research Systems, read 2026-10-09
6. [At a Glance: FactSet Estimates Point-in-Time Consensus](https://insight.factset.com/resources/at-a-glance-factset-estimates-point-in-time-consensus) — FactSet, read 2026-10-09
7. [17 CFR 244.100, General rules regarding disclosure of non-GAAP financial measures (Regulation G)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/244.100) — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, read 2026-10-09
8. [17 CFR 243.100, General rule regarding selective disclosure (Regulation FD)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/243.100) — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, read 2026-10-09
9. [AbbVie Reports Full-Year and Fourth-Quarter 2025 Financial Results, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1551152/000155115226000004/abbv-20251231xexhibit991.htm) — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), 2026-02-04
10. [Data providers and market coverage on Yahoo Finance](https://help.yahoo.com/kb/finance-for-web/SLN2310.html) — Yahoo, read 2026-10-09
11. [AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), analysis](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ABBV/analysis/) — Yahoo Finance, read 2026-10-09
12. [Apple Inc. (AAPL), analysis](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/analysis/) — Yahoo Finance, read 2026-10-09
13. [Novo Nordisk A/S (NVO), analysis](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVO/analysis/) — Yahoo Finance, read 2026-10-09
14. [AbbVie, detailed earnings estimates](https://www.zacks.com/stock/quote/ABBV/detailed-earning-estimates) — Zacks Investment Research, read 2026-10-09
15. [Novo Nordisk, detailed earnings estimates](https://www.zacks.com/stock/quote/NVO/detailed-earning-estimates) — Zacks Investment Research, read 2026-10-09
16. [Data sources](https://stockanalysis.com/data-sources/) — Stock Analysis, 2026-06-14
17. [AbbVie (ABBV) stock forecast](https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/abbv/forecast/) — Stock Analysis, read 2026-10-09
18. [Novo Nordisk (NVO) stock forecast](https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/nvo/forecast/) — Stock Analysis, read 2026-10-09
19. [Where do you get your data?](https://www.koyfin.com/help/faq/where-do-you-get-your-data/) — Koyfin, 2024-12-10
20. [Actuals and Consensus](https://www.koyfin.com/help/actuals-consensus/) — Koyfin, 2023-12-05
21. [Earnings History Snapshot](https://www.koyfin.com/help/earnings-history/) — Koyfin, 2024-07-11
22. [Finnhub API specification (earnings calendar and EPS estimates endpoints)](https://finnhub.io/static/swagger.json) — Finnhub, read 2026-10-09
23. [Financial Estimates API](https://site.financialmodelingprep.com/developer/docs/stable/financial-estimates) — Financial Modeling Prep, read 2026-10-09
24. [I/B/E/S consensus information](https://research2.fidelity.com/fidelity/research/reports/release2/Research/RefinitivIBES.asp) — Fidelity Investments, read 2026-10-09

*Last updated 2026-10-09. A reference page, corrected in place — not a dated post.*