Q. Analyst Earning Estimates, Recommendations and Calendar ?

Equity research analysts at brokerage firms evaluate a set of stocks in a sector.  By analyzing a company's financials and the company and industry fundamentals, they create financial models to estimate the company's financials. Based on these estimates, they also make investment recommendations.  These investment recommendations generally are one of the three - Buy, Hold or Sell.  

Estimates are available through IBES and Bloomberg. 

I/B/E/S* has international earnings forecasts dating back to 1971. Aggregate access is through Datastream International or the Wharton Research Data Service. Datastream holds the Historical and Current Summary databases from I/B/E/S. I/B/E/S provides information on over 60,000 active and over 20,000 inactive companies in over 100 markets. More then 30,000 financial analysts representing over 3,000 institutions continually contribute earnings expectational data to I/B/E/S. Current Summary data on Datastream is updated on a weekly basis, the Historical Database is updated on a monthly basis. Includes Global Aggregates a tool for forecasts of many countries and major international indices. In addition to summary data, WRDS contains analyst by analyst data. In addition to needing a WRDS password, user must submit a request to I/B/E/S for using the data (available from the WRDS homepage).  Requires user to validate through password.  To link to CRSP, use the IBES CRSP link.

Bloomberg estimate codes:

• ticker <equity> ANR <go> gives the analyst recommendation for the ticker. 
• ticker <equity> EE <go> gives the earnings expectations for the ticker and growth estimates
• ticker <equity> SUPR <go> gives the earnings surprise data for the ticker
• ticker <equity> ECO <go> gives the consensus for the ticker. 
• ticker <equity> EM <go> gives a matrix of estimates and actuals over time
• ticker <equity> ACDR <go> gives the calendar of expected earnings announcements and estimates.