Guides and References
Business - Industry Research Basics
- This section will help you:
- Identify industries to research.
- Find industry overviews.
- Identify the major companies in each industry.
- Find financial information for individual companies.
- Search for macroeconomic factors influencing the industry.
Identifying and Describing an Industry
Where should you look for lists of industries to study?
- Yahoo! Finance - Industry Index:
The Industry Index here isn't perfect, but it's free, easily accessible and it contains a fairly long list of different industries so it makes a good starting point. The biggest trick with this is selecting an industry that can be researched within the time allowed for your assignment. Talk to your professors if you are having trouble.
For each industry it will provide:- News: Current news stories about the industry.
- Leaders and Laggards: This generates a list of the companies doing well or poorly in the industry. The list can be generated based upon about 15 different financial variables like price performance, market capitalization and return on equity.
- Company Index: This gives a partial list of companies within the industry.
- Industry Browser: This creates a chart of nine financial and stock price variables for companies in the industry.
- Ward's Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies:
In Sprague Library Reference Department - REF HG4057 .A59 2007 V.5
An old standard in business libraries. This book is organized by SIC (see below) and lists the major companies within each industry. It can be found in the Reference Department of the library at the call number above. - Industry Profiles, Business Source Premier:
The industry profiles within this database are comparable to the profiles in the Industry Surveys book listed below. There are more industries listed in Business Source Premier and the profiles can be accessed from anywhere you can get online. The industry profiles will contain an overview of the industry, its value, the kinds of products it produces, lists of the major players in the industry and their shares of the market and also a forecast for the industry. SWOT Analyses, Market Research and Company Profiles are also available. - Industry Surveys from Standard & Poor's:
At Sprague Library Reference Desk - REF HC106.6 .S74
A standard in business libraries. The Industry Profiles from Business Source Premier
are comparable to the reports in here, but this is easier to browse. The latest copy
of this three volume set is at the library's Reference Desk. The previous edition
is in the reference collection. The set is updated in January and October each year. - NAICS and SIC: Both systems have been used by the statistical agencies of the U.S. government to organize data about the economy. Since many directories of companies are organized by one or both of these classification systems finding the code for a particular industry can make researching that industry easier. This will be especially useful when making custom reports by industry with Mergent Online.
Gathering Data about Companies within the Industry
The Industry Profiles in Business Source Premier and Industry Surveys will identify the major players in an industry however they will not give detailed financial information about the companies. Check the sources below for detailed company financials.- SWOT Analyses, Business Source Premier: A short report focusing on the strengths,
weaknesses, and outside threats of a single company. (See Business Source Premier above) - Mergent Online: Lists 15 years of financials for over 10,000 companies.
Balance sheets, ratios and many other data points are included along with lists
of subsidiaries and short biographies of corporate officers. Custom reports can be
created by downloading data which can be imported into spreadsheets. These reports
can include up to 500 companies. - SEC Filings: These are documents that publicly-traded US corporations need to file
with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 10-K form is one that is frequently
sought out by business researchers.
The filings can be retrieved from a number of sources: - Company websites: Many corporations have several years of their SEC Filings online.
Check their websites under Shareholder Information or Investor Information.
Look them up using Yahoo, Google or some other search engine.
If this doesn't work out check the three sources below. - EDGAR: The SEC's collection of filings online.
- Mergent Online: Click on Edgar Search after entering Mergent. Be sure to set Filing Date Search to Last 12 Months, and Filing Type to 10K.
- LexisNexis: Click on Business near the top left corner of the screen.
Click on SEC Filings in the menu on the left side of the second screen (Company Dossier).
Sources: Set this to SEC Form 10-K.
Type the company name or ticker symbol up above and run the search. - Annual Reports: A useful report, but one commonly written with the
company's stockholders as the intended audience. Most companies listed on the
stock exchanges will have several years worth of annual reports on their websites.
They will usually be listed under headings like Shareholder Information or
Investor Information. The easiest path to finding a company's website is to
check Yahoo or some other Internet search engine. Mergent Online will also
give access to some annual reports. - LexisNexis: The Business section contains company profiles, SEC Filings and allows
the comparison of current company financial information.
Outside Factors Influencing an Industry
After finding information about individual companies and describing an industry as a whole. Here we are going to discuss are factors outside the industry that have an effect upon it. This can be a whole assignment all by itself because there is not much of a substitute for doing a lot of reading in a wide variety of sources to get a feel for how things fit together. For instance, what factors are affecting the price of wheat and corn? Demand, weather, the price of oil, corn being grown for fuel instead of for food, government subsidies and regulations. All of these have an effect on the price of wheat and corn.
Start by reading the business news sources listed in the Business Journal section of this guide. Search for articles about the industry you need to research, influences on it and events taking place in its markets in the U.S. and abroad.
If you have trouble finding information about government regulations drop by in person or call the Sprague Library's Reference Desk. Phone: 973-655-4291 or 973-655-4297