Dear Sir:

It is Extremely Important that you get the Quarterly Profits posted immediately!!! It is fundamental to trading stocks -- NOT ONLY the Earnings -- But also knowing when the next set of Earnings are coming out!!!

Your data system DTNIQ, becomes a bit worthless, if you do not provide the earnings reports. Individual stocks will jump up or down when their earnings come out. It is important to know when the earnings are expected. It is impossible to search 1 stock at a time for several hundred stocks to determine if the earnings are coming out. It is hard enough to do it when you miss a stock or two with the old system.

I cannot over emphasize how important it is to have the earnings reports. I cannot believe that anyone else is going to find this forum to complain. It took me quite awhile. Then, no one knew where I should submit my comments. I wonder if anyone at DTN will read this??

Ed
e-mail: D2Bike@Juno.com

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Ed

This sounds interesting and I think you highlight a very important point that I have overlooked.

Can you explain a little? Which fields specifically are you looking at? Are the fields in the fundamental message such as EPS, Est. EPS? I can't see the reporting date or the next reporting date field.

Ed,

Yes, someone from DTN will read this. In fact, our entire DTN.IQ team reads this forum so we can better understand and respond to our customers needs.

Sasha, Ed is talking about the earnings and company news pages that we used to produce in our newsroom. Most likely you had never seen these stories because based on our stats, it wasn't looked at by very many people.

This content used to be in table form and was updated every few hours throughout the trading day with companies reporting earnings.

We have replaced these tables with streaming, real time news on earnings releases and commentary. This provides a more useful format for customers who are looking for immediate, tradeable information about an earnings release on companies of interest. The tables we used to produce weren't as usable because there was no symbol indexing, and thus no alerts could be triggered on the data. Not only were the tables not real time, the user had to scan through the entire table to determine if a company of interest was reporting. Another issue was that once the day was over, the table was gone.

Now, all stories (including earnings releases) are coded with the stock symbol. Thus, you can set an alert (audio/visual/email) anytime a story hits. You can also search for stories on companies of interest. You can set filters in the news app for all symbols in your watch lists (so you don't have to set them individually). You can see the news count (which turns red with new stories) as well as the latest headline on a company in your watch list. All of these features add up to much more power and flexibility when looking for earnings releases.

Change is often hard for people to swallow. In this case, the change from our internal newsroom to that of RealTimeTraders (previously a premium service) is a significant improvement and benefit to users of DTN.IQ and IQFeed.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

In regards to finding this forum: There is a link on our DTN.IQ and IQFeed homepage under the "support" column linking to our forums. In addition, every email we send out from customer support has a signature telling customers about our forums and our desire to communicate with customers openly. We definately don't try to hide. We have email, phone, real time chat, and forums based support for our users. As you can see by the time of this post, you will often receive replies afterhours as well. Not many of our competitors can claim the same.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Sasha:

I look at the earnings/share for the current quarter versus the earnings/share of the quarter a year ago and likewise for the revenue. I also record the date the earnings come, since the next earnings report for that company is usually 3 months later.
For Example for IBM: $1.16 vs $0.97 7/16/ 4 23153 vs 21631 The revenue numbers are in millions of dollars. This gives a clear picture if the company is making more money this year and if their revenue is going up or down. In addition, I expect the next earnings to be coming out around 10/16/ 4. Ed

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Ed

Jay,

Unless I'm missing something here. I do NOT understand how it is practical to find and list earnings for 1000 stocks or so with streaming tables. The amount of alerts set off each day with unwanted news items would be overwhelming, then to search through them for the earnings would be impractical.

Under the old system, one could download the earnings reports each day, computer search and list those stocks of interest, with the current date. Then it is simple matter to display the earnings report for each stock as it is being charted. With the old system, one not only knows the earnings for each stock, but also, the day it came out and the next time, 3 months later, it is expected to release new earnings--- No Surprises!!

I never want to own a stock on the day the earnings come out. Under the old system I know when the earnings are coming out.

Ed

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Ed

What if the news filter in DTN.IQ would allow you to choose an 'AND' statement so the news could be filtered by EARNINGS and stocks in your watch list. Right now it is only based on 'OR', so you will get stocks with earnings or that match your watch list.

If we added this functionality, you could say give me only news on my 1000 stocks that have the word EARNINGS in it. Would that accomplish what you need?

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

It would be cumbersome, because I would have to look for the earnings per share and revenue for the quarter for each stock. This would take a lot of time. I do this for some stocks that are missed by going to Yahoo, others I just ignore, because I do not want to waste time (usually I have an old earnings & date for those stocks.) I cannot image doing this during the height of earnings season when 100 stocks are releasing earnings each day.

The old system was so easy. I download the stock earnings report and then I push a button (ie. run a program) and it is done. The earnings & date appear with my charted stock.

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Ed

Without the tabular EPS and Sales data, DTN has no use for us, sad to say... After all these (10?) years... Signal would be better, I would think. Or, if you want to spend a lotta cash, Thomson financial for the ultimate.

JAY:

So, what is happening on the Quarterly Earnings Reports? (and the market Statistics?) Anything or is it gone forever?

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Ed

As I stated, I am working with RTT to see if they can populate the Earnings table. I can't give any assurance they can do it, but I am waiting to hear from them.

What market statistics are you talking about? If you are talking about the Open Interest numbers and such, we will start producing the text pages again sometime next week. However, in the mean time, the data is all available via programmable quote pages.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Thanks Jay:

Yes, the market statistics page contained the Open Interest Numbers, plus the number of new highs and lows for the NYSE, AMSE, & the Nasdaq. I would like to get at least the new highs and lows, if that is possible. I'm on Internet DTNIQ, now. I don't believe I have any programmable pages?? Can I get the number of new highs & lows for each exchange now??

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Ed

the number of new highs and lows are available on both Satellite and Internet. In DTN.IQ, there is a sample watch list called "Sample Market Statistics". This watch list includes 272 of the DTN Calcs and should get you what you need (new highs and lows by exchange).

When referring to DTN.IQ, we don't have "Programmable Pages", instead you have Watch lists (but they are essentially the same thing).

the Open Interest numbers will need to be compiled, and we hope to have those transmitting again next week.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Jay:

Let me be clear about the ONE service that gave me added value from DTNIQ:

The earnings tables compared, side by side, the earnings per share, the net income, and the total sales, of a company's current time period (usually a quarter) to the same time period one year ago.
If you are not going to restore the table format, the most important service for which I paid a full year subscription, I would like my money back, pro rated to Sept. 30th when you ended the table format (right BEFORE the 3rd quarter results). DTNIQ's other services are not worth the price and are easily available on the net.

Steve

Same here!

Let's give Jay a few days to work on an answer, no?

Still no news on restoring the corp news service I paid for. Clear breach of contract. Begging won't work. Better Business Bureau complaint disk, here I come...

What section of the contract was breached?

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Jay:

Any news on the corporate earnings tables being re-established? Time is running out on the 3rd quarter earnings reporting season.

Steve

So far things look promising. RTT is hoping to have something for me to look at in the next couple days. It won't be exactly what was provided before, but hopefully we can provide a table of earnings nontheless. I'll post more as I get it from RTT.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Jay:

Thanks for the update on the earnings tables. The prior format; with earnings, net income and sales, side by side with last year, was fine with me and looked quite simple. If it's updated twice in a day that is enough for me.

Steve

Jay,

Can you go back to the old format of Earning Reports until you get something working with the RTT?? Or, is there a website out there somewhere, where we can get the Earning Reports, other than, 1 at a time at Yahoo?? (We are missing a lot of 3rd quarter earnings!)

Does the NYSE or the NASDAQ provide a listing of the Earning Reports?? How do brokerage firms and others get the Earning Reports??

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Ed

Unfortunately no. The old files were done in a completely manual fashion. RTT thinks they have what we need, and are preparing the files for me to look at. I was hoping to have some samples today, but it is starting to get pretty late. I don't really know of anyone else who would have a table like this, mainly because it is so resource intensive. Exchanges usually don't provide any data, in fact, the data on their sites (even quotes) are almost always from a 3rd party. To be honest, I know that a lot of brokers use the RTT feed. What I have found is that most sites only concentrate on earnings surprises as opposed to just the numbers. This is why RTT is making a few changes to accomodate what our users are requesting. They have been very receptive to changes so far, unfortunately it often takes time to get the code and testing done.

Right now the plan is to make the earnings table a single, large page instead of breaking it up into multiple pages.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Thank you for following through with the earnings etc, very important to so many of us..
I visited the realtimetraders.com web site..
Really a great experience.. I hope they provide DTN with the same high quality experience..
Any word on the "near real time" snap shot for stock quotes..
Also what about just end of market day open high low close on the financials and currencies??
Thanks again,
Gene

Thanks Jay,

A single large page of Earning Reports sounds real good!! (I hope the format is something like the old format with comparisons of earnings/share & revenue in the last 3 months compared to a year ago for each company.)

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Ed

Me too. I have provided RTT with copies of the old content we created, and they thought it wasn't going to be an issue. Based on that, I am assuming they have all of the data we had. However, until I see the samples from them, I cannot declare victory and continue to have reservation...

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

I just received a "Sample" of the Earnings report from RTT. We are working on some formatting and other minor changes (such as scheduling of sending the page). It has all of the fields we used to provide except for the proforma, late report and "new" indicator (the #, * and !). Based on the comments here, it sounds like a single page will be good. Will a single, all inclusive EOD update provide everyone with that they need as well? I don't exepct to be able to start sending this today or tomorrow since we are still tweaking it. Next week looks very promising though.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Jay,
Sounds good so far. While you are working on this project, what about putting the last couple of quarters of "date of report, sales, eps, and profit/loss" on the Quick Quote screen for those who might not be able to review earnings page every day.. Or perhaps for those looking at a new issue to include in their portfolio.. A nice programing touch would be to be
able to click on the symbol of an issue in the broker quotes pages and get the quick quote page for that stock as a quick reference..

I still need "near real time snapshot quotes" for morning activity before going to work..
In the evening for charting, delayed or near real time or real time makes no difference..

Thanks again,
Gene

I have thought quite a bit about the real time snapshot for Spectrum. Unfortunately, I cannot find a business case that really makes this an option today. To do this, we would have to eliminate the delayed snapshot ability (due to satellite bandwidth) and replace it with real time snap shots. Even then, the only way someone can be authorized for real time data is if we have exchange agreements from them. We would have to raise prices to offset the exchange fees, and we still wouldn't be able to switch to real time until every one of our customers returned the written exchange agreements. Then, there is an issue for anyone deemed a pro user, they would have to pay exchange fees in excess of $100 per month. Add to that the fact that we do have a real time service already, the best option would be for users who need the real time data to switch to the Real Time service. I tried to find a way that would make sense, but it just doesn't work out to be viable at this time.

Some of your other suggestions will be noted. We have to keep in mind that there are over 100,000 people using the Spectrum type box, and any enhancements we make need to be coordinated/considered within our other product areas.

We are about to release our DTN.IQ for Satellite software, which will provide many of the features you request, however you would need to pass the data from your satellite box into a PC.

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Jay Froscheiser
DTN Market Access, LLC.

Jay,

Would you please send me whatever you have?? I have a powerful editor - emacs. I would prefer a text file, but whatever you have I can convert it and edit it. There were a lot of earning reports today and there will be tomorrow. Please send whatever you have. I write my own programs. D2Bike@Juno.com

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Ed

Jay,

Back to the Real Time Snapshots.. If the exchanges did not charge for their ability to discriminate against the PUBLIC by charging excessively for real time quotes then you would
not have a problem supplying your 100,000 Spectrum users with this information..

The solution is simple.. Include a petition with your quarterly billing requesting that the
exchanges eliminate their "FRONT RUNNING ACTIVITIES" and demand that the exchanges realize that they are responsible to ALL OF THE PUBLIC AT THE SAME TIME, and that ALL OF THE PUBLIC has a right to the most recent information with the same immediacy..

Every month send these signed petitions to the SEC chairman's office.. Eventually this
information elitism will be gone..

Gene