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How is "Cash Flow Per Share" calculated in the StockCentral datafeed?
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tonyr53  
#1 Posted : Saturday, January 2, 2010 4:54:58 PM(UTC)
tonyr53

Rank: Newbie

Posts: 3

Hi everyone,

I just joined Stock Central a couple of days ago and I've been playing around with Toolkit 6 as well as some of the online features--data and tools.  I'm trying to get a feel for the data as well as the data integrity.  Regarding the online features I pulled up a Company Report (Tab "data/Company") for Abbot Labs (ABT).  Within the report there is quarterly and 9 years of historical data.  One of the historical lines is Cash flow per share.  I cannot figure out where those figures come from.  For example, the 2008 number is $4.35.  If I multiple that number by the shares of 1560.8, I get a cash flow of $6789.48.  I thought it would be Free Cash Flow, but its not.  It's not operating cash flow ($7344), or Morningstar's definition of free cash flow (after Cap ex) ($6056.5), or the standard free cash flow definition which further subtracts dividends paid ($3882).  I noticed in the online ratio analyzer help info that the latter is what is used for cash flow/share.  I'm thinking that perhaps the data is scrubbed as I see that EPS on the page is normalized diluted and differs from what shows up in the 10 year data on Morningstar. (2008 has discontinued operations).  However, if I look at 2007's data, I can't tie out cash flow per share there either.

I need to resolve this as I feel cash flow is one of the most critical data points as it comes into play when you construct a DCF analysis for valuation purposes and is also important for looking at payout ratios (% of cash flow, instead of % of earnings), for companies with a lot of non-cash charges, or high cap ex requirements.

Regarding data integrity, when I pulled in Philip Morris International data into Toolkit 6, I noticed that the quarterly revenues were messed up.  Some quarters had the excise taxes in the revenue numbers (the way PM reports it) and some quarters had the excise taxes removed.  That is a huge difference as the taxes can be $10 billion a quarter. (I used the subscribed data-option 3 for "Begin a New Stock Study" on the home page.  I have Stock Central setup as my source in preferences.  I believe it pulls from Morningstar.  Is that correct?)

I am wondering how much data checking and scrubbing I will have to do if I use this website and Toolkit 6.  If I can't trust the data "as is", I'm not sure what the benefit will be time-wise in doing my analyses.

 

Thank you,

Tony

 

 

 

 
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gerlach  
#2 Posted : Sunday, January 3, 2010 1:34:46 PM(UTC)
gerlach

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Cash Flow per Share is [Net Income from Total Operations minus Preferred Dividends plus Depreciation] divided by common shares outstanding.

[Net Income from Total Operations] is total operations (continuing + discontinued operations), after taxes and minority interest and before extraordinary gains/losses.

These values come directly from Morningstar and are not adjusted by us at all.

I would like to add Free Cash Flow to the data feed some time this year, so we'll look at how to provide the most useful information at that time.

If you find discrepancies in the data, report them here in the Infirmary or ICLUB support (www.iclub.com/support/) and we'll file a ticket with Morningstar.

Doug
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dalesstuff  
#3 Posted : Friday, June 11, 2010 2:35:30 PM(UTC)
dalesstuff

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Posts: 1
I too depend upon cash flow from operations and free cash flow when evaluating a stock. I get the data from sec.gov/edgar since it isn't readily available from the ToolKit downloads. It would make ToolKit a stronger offering if it was downloaded with generally accepted definitions for cash flow.
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gerlach  
#4 Posted : Saturday, June 12, 2010 12:38:44 PM(UTC)
gerlach

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We'll be making some modifications to the datafile format later this year and we hope to improve the cash flow figures at that point.

Doug
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