• Ticker: The company's ticker symbol.
• Company: The company name.
• Industry: One of more than seventy industry groups. These groupings represent an aggregation of the over 200 industry categories under which Zacks records data.
• Last Update: The date of the database update.

The Zacks Rating is based on our proprietary model that uses earnings estimate revisions and earnings surprises to predict short-term price movements. Stocks are rated as a Strong Buy, Buy/Outperform, Hold, Sell/Underperform, or a Strong Sell. These ratings have shown to be an accurate predictor of stock price performance (relative to the market) for the coming 90-180 days as oppose to the analyst's long-term predictions that usually represent a 6-12 month outlook.

The Zacks Rank is also a relative measure, comparing stock against the entire universe of stocks, and the distribution of ranks reflects this: approximately 20% of stocks are ranked Buy/Outperform or Strong Buy; 60% of stocks are ranked Hold; and 20% ranked Sell/Underperform or Strong Sell.

Analyst: Under the Analyst heading is a list of the names of the individual analysts. If the analyst name is listed as Not Ident - it means that you do not have an authorization to view the name. You can click the Analyst heading to sort the column.

Broker: Under the Broker heading is a list of the names of the brokerage houses and independent research institutions that currently employ the analyst. If the broker name is listed as Not Ident - it means that you do not have an authorization to view the name. You can click the Broker heading to sort the column.

When the Broker column has the CO FORECAST entry, it identifies the company's own estimates for the earnings.

The Annual Estimates section lists the analyst's EPS projections for the current and next fiscal years.

Current Fiscal Year Estimates

12/2000	The leftmost column of the Annual Estimates section shows the latest estimates for the company's current fiscal year. The column's heading shows the month and the year the current fiscal year will end in the MM/YYYY format (for example, 12/2000).
	An up or down arrow next to the estimate indicates a recent estimate revision. The direction of the arrow indicates a change from the previous analyst's estimate.
3.75	Estimates made by the Most Accurate Analysts are shown in red. You can click the MM/YYYY heading to sort the column.

Date of Annual EPS Estimate

	The Date column shows the date when the current fiscal year estimate was made.
03/15/2000	A blue rating date indicates the most recently released analyst EPS estimates. You can click the Date heading to sort the column.

Next Fiscal Year Estimates

12/2001	Analysts' EPS estimates for the next fiscal year are listed in the Annual Estimates section in the column headed by the month and year (MM/YYYY) the company's next fiscal year will end.
	An up or down arrow next to the estimate indicates a recent estimate revision. The direction of the arrow indicates a change from the previous analyst's estimate.
4.25	Estimates made by the Most Accurate Analysts are shown in red. You can click the MM/YYYY heading to sort the column.

Date of Annual EPS Estimate

	The Date column shows the date when the the next fiscal year estimate was made.
03/15/2000	A blue rating date indicates the most recently released analyst EPS estimates. You can click the Date heading to sort the column.

There are four columns in the # of Month Analyst Beats Consensus display. Each column represents one of the past four company's fiscal years, identified by that fiscal year end date.

For each year, we look at the analyst estimate 12 times during that year (at each month end). We then compare that estimate with the consensus on that date and note if the analyst was more accurate than the consensus. As the result, the number of months (out of 12 observations) when the analyst's absolute forecasting error was less than the consensus absolute error is then shown in each column.