[IMPROVE] Period columns are not aligned with fiscal year reporting
laurynasas opened this issue · 2 comments
Hello!
For some companies (such as Apple) fiscal year does not align with the calendar year. This is a common practice among many retail and technology companies, as it allows for a more consistent comparison of year-over-year performance, particularly in industries where sales can be highly seasonal.
I believe we should use fiscal year periods for fetching the reports instead of calendar year, what do you think?
Example:
companies = Toolkit(
tickers=['AAPL'],
api_key=FMP_KEY,
start_date="2023-01-01",
quarterly=True,
)
print(companies.get_statistics_statement())
returns:
date 2023Q1 2023Q2 2023Q3
Reported Currency USD USD USD
CIK ID 320193 320193 320193
Filling Date 2023-05-05 2023-08-04 2023-11-03
Accepted Date 2023-05-04 18:03:52 2023-08-03 18:04:43 2023-11-02 18:08:27
Calendar Year 2023 2023 2023
Period Q2 Q3 Q4
SEC Link https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193...
Document Link https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193...
the documents and periods would not align with the date columns.
Thanks a lot!
Hi @laurynasas, I purposely did it the other way around. Apple's Q4 2023 (July - September 2023) is adjusted to Q3 2023 so that it allows for proper comparison between other companies (given that it matches up with the calendar period Q3). This is done for all companies that have a deviating calendar year. You wouldn't be able to compare e.g. Microsoft to Apple as easily as you see here:
I need to write these adjustments down in a Q&A I believe to prevent confusion. Do you disagree with this method?
Yeah, it makes sense, it helps with the fair comparison, thanks for the explanation!