Financial Analysis Tools
Financial Analysis Tools
This guide is designed to help students identify resources to use in company and industry financial analyses, including financial statements, SEC Filings, analyst reports and estimates, holdings data, historical quotes, conference call transcripts, and articles.
Financial Statements & SEC Filings
The single most important set of information on public companies: financial statements help make transparent to investors the current health of a business, and the periodic filings required by the Securities & Exchange Commission supplement those statements with narrative disclosures of relevant information by company management that help put the raw numbers into perspective.
Mergent Online: view and download financial statements (3-15 years of data), obtain company ratios, find SEC filings and other company information.
Lexis-Nexis Business: retrieve general business news, company and industry profiles, financial statements and ratios, SEC filings, and more.
Factiva: locate financial statements, company profiles, ratio comparisons. Use the Companies/Markets tab.
SEC/EDGAR: EDGAR is the Securities & Exchange Commission's public website for finding and retrieving required periodic company information filings. EDGAR guide to SEC filings.
Thomson Research Guide to SEC Filings: describes various filings and information required, by section of the report.
Analyst Reports
Analyst reports are prepared by major brokerage houses and other business information providers to inform staff, investor clients, and the general public on the performance of individual companies and industries and the likely prospects for their stocks.
Investext Plus: reports and forecasts prepared by top Wall Street and international brokerage firms. More than 11,000 U.S. and international companies and 53 industries are covered.
Value Line Research Center: quarterly-updated reports on over 3,500 stocks, 90 industries, and 2,000 mutual funds; news & analysis; options; convertibles; special situations; and exchange traded funds.
Standard & Poor's Stock Reports: reports of companies' activities, development, performance, and outlook by S & P investment analysts. Includes investment opinion; stock price, earnings, and dividend history; financial statement and ratio analysis.
Mergent Equity Research Reports: summary data, analysis, and recommendations from Mergent and Ford Equity Research analysts. Select "Equity Reports" tab, search for the company, and select the listed report's pdf icon on the right side of the screen.
Analyst Estimates
Numerous databases and websites provide summary information on Wall Street analysts individual and industry consensus estimates of company earnings performance.
Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage: pull up a company profile and select "Estimates & Opinions.
MarketWatch (Dow Jones): pull up a company profile, then select the "Analyst Info" tab at top.
Historical Stock Quotes
Most databases and financial web sites provide only a few years of stock price history. Daily stock price history is available in relatively fewer sources.
Factiva: Select Companies/Markets, select radio button for "Historical Quotes," select desired date range, and search.
Yahoo! Finance Stock Research Center: select "historical quotes" under Research Tools, then search for company and date range. Also accessible in left-side menu on a company page.
New York Times Historical: enter the name of the exchange (NYSE, ASE, Nasdaq, etc.); set the date for the day after your desired market date; under More Search Options>Document type, select "Stock quote," and search.
Holdings Data
Researchers are often interested in knowing what proportion of a company's stock is held by insiders, large investors, and institutions.
Value Line Research Center: search for a company and select the html version of the company profile.
MSN Money: pull up a company record, then select the "Ownership" link on left side.
Yahoo! Finance: pull up a company record, then select Ownership>Major Holders link on left side.
Conference Call Transcripts
Substantive conversations between company's upper management and investment banking analysts covering topics including, 1) earnings announcements, 2) significant events (e.g. auditor changes, restatement of financials, change in management), 3) changes in strategic or operational direction.
Factiva: a publication called Fair Disclosure provides this content. To find it in Factiva, use this search strategy: in the free text search box, type: sn=fair disclosure and hd=company name.
See Also:
Research consultations
Professional reference service is available at both the St. Paul and Minneapolis campus libraries. If you are interested in a research consultation, contact:
Ryan Carter, Minneapolis, (651) 962-4646, cart1589@stthomas.edu
Marianne Hageman, St. Paul, (651) 962-5404, mdhageman@stthomas.edu
Eric Kallas, St. Paul, (651) 962-5013, epkallas@stthomas.edu
Andrea Koeppe, Minneapolis, (651) 962-4647, arhudson@stthomas.edu
Janice Kragness, Minneapolis, (651) 962-4645, jlkragness@stthomas.edu
