WRDS: Wharton Research Data Services: I/B/E/S Basics

WRDS use is restricted to authorized UST faculty, staff, and students. Commercial use is not permitted.

Current Students, Faculty, and Staff Access Only:

Hit the "Register" link in the top menu bar and submit a request for your individual username and password to access WRDS.  The request will be sent to the WRDS administrators at St Thomas for review.  We will process your request upon receipt.

1. Go to http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu
2. Below the login box, click "Register for a WRDS account".
3. Fill out the account request form.
4. Click "Register".
5. Your request will be processed within a couple of days.

Note: WRDS is instituting Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) beginning at the end of November 2022. You will need to verify your email, register for a new account with Duo Security, and then decide whether to use their mobile app or the web interface to do the two-factor authentication. You will know when you need to register a device for two-factor authentication if, when you log in to WRDS, a message appears alerting you that you need to enroll. | 2FA Instructions

Once you have registered for access to WRDS using the instructions on this page, access I/B/E/S and access more information about using it with the links below.

The Institutional Brokers Estimates System, or IBES (pronounced EYE-biss), provides consensus and detailed forecasts from security analysts, including earnings per share, revenue, cash flow, long term growth projections and stock recommendations.

For a stock to be included in IBES, at least one analyst must have been tracking it.

Note: The IBES data on WRDS has been reorganized with the October 2010 release.  Please see the note on the IBES Manuals page for more details. 

Here are the basic steps for starting a search within I/B/E/S

	Go to the Home tab Select I/B/E/S from the Current Subscriptions of WRDS
	Select the dataset you are interested in.  We'll use Summary History - Summary Statistics
	Complete your query on this screen. Start with dates, then move down the menu of variables. Use Code Lookup to find the proper company codes.

Some helpful hints: 

• Don't make your search too narrow. 
• It's best practice to download the data in XML Excel file format.
• Did you search for multiple companies? The results won't be side-by-side; they'll be bunched together vertically.