Categories
Investment

Historical valuation data for global stockmarket indices

Long-term historical data on price/earning ratios, price/book ratios and dividend yields for stockmarket indices is extremely valuable in looking at long-term returns – but it can be very difficult to obtain. While price data is available for many major markets stretching back decades or more, valuation data typically hasn’t been recorded so carefully.

The figures that are available have usually been reconstructed from old earnings reports and are proprietary data sets that are expensive to access. For those who are willing to pay, Global Financial Data is probably the most comprehensive source for very long-term financial data of all kinds.

For those who can’t justify the cost of paid-for data, there are a few freely downloadable data series for some of the major indices around the world, although they are often hard to find and there is no consistency about which markets are available. The following links will take you to the ones I’ve found that are still updated  – if you’re aware of any others, please let me know in the comments below or by email.

Categories
News

Cheap(er) international data through Interactive Brokers Information Systems (IBIS)

Interactive Brokers have recently announced an interesting new data product called Interactive Brokers Information Systems (IBIS) that seems to be trying to fill the gap for investors and traders who want extensive data and analytics services without the Bloomberg and Reuters-level price tag.

IBIS is available as an add-on to its Trader Workstation for Interactive Brokers’ clients (US$39/month, discounted against commissions) or as a stand-alone product for non-clients (US$69/month for the first year, rising to US$89/month afterwards). That’s the platform fee – you need to pay the relevant exchange and provider fees for price and data feeds on top of that.

Existing clients can already get data through Interactive Brokers on the same terms, so the extra US$39/month value in IBIS is presumably supposed to be the convenience of its interface, portfolio analytics, screening tools and other software. Each trader will have their own view on whether this is worth the money or not.

For non-clients, this now seems to be the cheapest stand-alone way to subscribe to international price and fundamental data. With an IBIS platform subscription, you can then get Reuters Worldwide Fundamentals for US$7/month, for example.