Understanding Sales TTM

Research
1

Hi all,

after having read Marc Gerstein’s topic 3B on Price to Sales in our collaborative group, I started to play around with the sales function.

With the goal to screen for companies with rising sales within the last two month I started to compare results of the following two formula:

Sales(0,TTM)
Sales(2,TTM)

From what I understand in the help reference an offset of 2 would basically give me TTM sales for two month ago. However, this does not seem to be the case from what I can see in the attached fundamental chart. Sales(0,TTM) gives me a sales number of 87 bln for IBM in mid September. Expecting a two month delay, Sales(2,TTM) should give me the same number for mid November, but the reported figure is actually 90 bln.

What am I missing?

sales.jpg
sales.jpg820×636 118 KB

2

Sales(2,TTM) is actually twelve month sales as of 2 quarters ago. You can see on your chart current sales are 84 and 2 quarters ago they were 90.

3

Hi,
I don’t think you can break any P123 data (other than estimates and prices/volume related) into less than 3 month spans/increments. It is all built on US SEC filings which are done quarterly. If you come up with something, I would like to see how you do it.