Estimize, an open web-based platform, has become an useful source to retrieve financial es- tiamtes. It facilitates the aggregation of financial estiamtes from a diverse community of indi- viduals. As shown in Figure 1, founded in 2011, there are increasing numbers of contributors who join the platform to provide financial estimates for an increasing numbers of companies. Consequently, an increasing numbers of earning forecasts can be used by Estimize for better consensus estimates. As of March 2020, in total there are 97,439 users contributed for 2,220 companies (e.g., stocks) on the platform. Compared with the analysts in IBES, Estimize solicits contributions from a community of individuals with a wide range of occupations. As shown in Figure 1, Estimize covers different kinds of contributors including both professionals, such as sell-side, buy-side, or independent analysts, and nonprofessionals, such as academia, student, Information Technology, and Energy. Because of the contributions of these individuals, who have diverse backgrounds and viewpoints, Estimize consensus can be more accurate than the Wall Street consensus and provides incremental information for forecasting earnings and for measuring the market expectation of earnings?

Number of Forecasts WAH HONNAKHON HHON DOHTON Estimize WANHONNANHON HANON Year Quarter Number of Users Number of Companies JONHA WHON DONTON Estimize Contributors Distribution Non Professional 8.3 Not Available Financial Professional Financial Professional Categorization Buy Side 85.2 34.9 44.2 20.9 Independent Sell Side Financials Non Professional Categorization Industrials Health Care Student 12.2 21.7 7.1 6.7 Figure 1: Estimize Sample Coverage and diversity 6.3 Academia 4.9 29.8 3.1 Consumer Discretionary Materials Energy 3.0Consumer 2.3 Telecommu- 1.8 1.0 Utilities Staples nication Services Information Technology