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Business FAQFind out how to locate basic business information from online and print resources
Company Directories | Balance Sheet & Income Statement |
The library subscribes to a number of national, regional and subject directories which provide basic information on a company; i.e., name of company, address, SIC code, product line description, leading officers, and dollar sales for the previous year. The national business directories (CorpTech Directory of Technology Companies and LexisNexis Corporate Affiliations) are shelved on Ready Ref Shelf 2 located next to the Reference Desk. For a Web directory try Hoover's Academic, LexisNexis Academic (click on the Business tab and select the Company Profiles menu option), Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage (click on the Companies tab), The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, or Ward's Business Directory. More sources of directory information on companies is located at the Research Guide for Company Information.
Balance Sheet & Income Statement Financial information on a public company is located in the annual report issued by the company. Mergent Online provides .pdf copies of annual reports on approximately 15,000 U.S. companies as well as up to ten years of financial information these companies. Another source for financial information is the 10K report companies file with the Securities and Exchange Commission at the EDGAR web site. Lastly, Compact Disclosure, located on LexisNexis Academic Universe (click on the Business tab and select the Company Profiles menu option) provides three years of standardized data. The data located at the Mergent and Compact Disclosure web sites can be downloaded into Excel. Note: Private companies are not required by law to reveal their financial statements to the public. If you are researching a private company, you may need time to contact and correspond with the company to get financial information.
To locate an extensive history of a company, see the multi-volume work: International Directory of Company Histories in print and online. To find the latest entry for the company you are researching, look up your company in the index of the last volume. The Hoover's Online database also contains brief company histories. For a chronological listing of important company dates, search for the company in Mergent Online and at the company record, select the company details tab and then history . Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys, located in Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage (click the Industries tab), is an excellent place to begin. It provides an extensive overview and outlook for 50 major industries. Other sources providing industry overviews and forecasts include Mergent Online, IBIS World and The Encyclopedia of American Industries. ValueLine also provides one page industry reports with data on the industry. For more sources of industry information, see the Research Guide for Industry Information. The NAICS code, or North American Industry Classification System, is a numerical classification system created by our government to facilitate the business counts for the economic census collected every 5 years. The NAICS code is a valuable tool for locating competing companies within the same industry, since many business directories will have an index arranged by the NAICS code listing companies within a particular industry. To locate the NAICS code for a particular industry you are researching, look the industry up at the NAICS web page or go to the index in the print North American Industry Classification System: United States 2002. Some indicators are reported monthly by various government departments, and some quarterly. An excellent web source of economic data is located at Economic Indicators or The U.S. Economy at a Glance published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Standard and Poor's NetAdvantage also contains the Trends & Projections publication. To get a better understanding of the significance of a particular indicator and how and why it is collected, see: Guide to Economic Indicators by Norman Framkin. For more sources of economic data and information, see the Research Guide for Economics.
Proquest Business Databases and Business Source Premier provide indexing to articles on companies, industries, and business topics. LexisNexis Academic Universe is another subscription database that will provide you with indexing to very current articles as well as the full-text of these articles. The product is international in scope and its coverage includes journals, newspapers, business wires and legal resources. Proquest, and Business Source Premier can be searched using company name, industry description or NAICS code.
To find the ratios for a particular industry, look up the industry by its SIC code in one of the following publications: Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios, RMA Annual Statement Studies, or The Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial Ratios. The library holds historical issues of these annual publications. Hoovers Online also provides key numbers and ratios for particular companies, their competitors, the industry and market. To access these numbers for a company you are researching, run a company search and from the blue menu on the left side of the screen, select competitive landscape. IBIS World also contains financial ratio information within their Industry Market Research section; enter your industry or NAICS code and then click on key Try the Market Share Reporter, the Business Rankings Annual, or the Mergent Industry Review. Hoovers Online also provides a listing of a company's key competitors. To obtain a listing of competitors, run a company search and select competitors from the blue menu options on the left side of the page. IBIS World also contains key competitor information within their company reports. They are listed under competitor companies on the left-hand side of the screen.
Get the daily high, low and close for a particular stock for the past year, in tabular form. There are now a number of sites on the Web that provide you with the historical stock data.
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