Earnings estimates in emerging markets-an update

In this paper I review the availability and timeliness of earnings estimates for public companies in emerging markets. After excluding companies with an investable capitalization of $100 million on 9/30/05, I find that on average for securities in the Morgan Stanley Capital International Emerging Markets Index (MSCI EM Index), a popular benchmark, there are nine estimates per security in Fiscal Year 1(FY1) and 8.7 in FY 2. The median number of estimates is 7. The average number of estimates per security in emerging markets exceeds the average number in the MSCI Japan Index, and substantially exceeds the average number of estimates in the Russell 2000 Index. For the companies that represent the top 90% of the MSCI EM Index capitalization, on average there are 2.8 revisions per month.