Knowledge Base

Compustat makes it easy to download company fundamentals or financials for a lot of companies at one time.

If you only need information for a few companies, see other company financials sources.

1. Connect to Compustat – see WRDS access help.
2. Under Subscriptions, select Compustat - Capital IQ. 
3. Under Compustat, select North America - Daily (or Global - Daily).
4. Select Fundamentals Quarterly (for quarterly data) or Fundamentals Annual (for annual data).*
5. Fill out the Web Query Form (see detailed instructions).
   1. Step 1: Enter a date range.
   2. Step 2: Enter company codes, upload a .txt file, or search the entire database.
   3. Step 3: Select query variables. Don't forget to select the company name!
   4. Step 4: Select the output (e.g. .csv).
6. Press Submit Query. When the download is complete, click the link to view. 

*These files contain hundreds of variables and it can be hard to find the most commonly used ones. You can use the Simplified Financial Statement Extract file as an easy way to quickly find the most important financial variables.

As the Simplified Financial Statement Extract file only provides annual data, if you need quarterly data, make note of the variables you want (e.g. Assets - Total (AT)). Then, use the Fundamentals Quarterly file and in the Web Query Form Step 3 search for the variables using the codes you have already identified but add a "Q" on the end (Q stands for quarterly) (e.g. ATQ).