Library Guides: Female Aspiring Business Scholars Summer Program: Finance

Key Competitors & Industry Financial Ratios

Industry profiles are useful for identifying key players, competitors, and relevant financial ratios for your business. Before using these tools it will be helpful to determine the industry that your business operates in.

IBISWorld
A library tool providing industry profiles. Use information in the Competitive Forces and Companies tabs to identify key competitors and industry financials.
This industry research database contains reports on industries in the China, Global, and U.S. markets. The U.S. content is further subdivided into: Industry Reports classified by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), Specialized Industry Reports for industries not adequately covered by NAICS, US Industry State Reports, US State Economic Profiles, US Industry iExpert Summaries, US Specialized Industry iExpert Summaries, US Business Environment Profiles, and US Business Environment State Profiles. Global industry reports are strong in the manufacturing sector. Each report contains an “at a glance” overview (including SWOT analysis), performance data, outlook data, products & markets analysis, competitive landscape analysis, lists of major companies, operating conditions, and key statistics. Statistics include financial ratios and industry averages from the Risk Management Association.

Investopedia
Investopedia is a source of articles and information about topics in finance.

INVESTOPEDIA TIP: Use the search tool to find articles about key financial ratios in your industry.

Financial Statements

The following tools are good sources for company financials, including 10K reports. You can also often find financial reports for publicly traded companies online by searching "[company name] investor site".

Click here for quick tips on using 10-K reports to learn about business risk factors.

EDGAR
The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission's database of company filings, including 10K reports for publicly traded companies.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provides access to millions of informational documents filed by publicly traded companies in their Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system. This database provides automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions by companies. EDGAR Resources include a list of Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes, used to indicate a company's type of business; a search engine to find Central Index Key (CIK) numbers assigned to filers; a Public Dissemination Service (PDS); RESTful data Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that include the submissions history by filer and the XBRL data from financial statements; and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds for EDGAR submissions to view, analyze, and manipulate filings.
NetAdvantage
A library tool for finding company profiles and financials. Search for a publicly traded company to find its financial statements and ratios.
Updated daily. Provides a comprehensive, professional source of investment information and analysis on industries and companies. Full text coverage includes stock, bond, and mutual fund guides and reports; earnings and dividends reports; comprehensive company information; industry surveys for 52 major U.S. industries; and directories of companies, executives and security dealers
Mergent Online
A library tool for finding company profiles and financials. Search for publicly traded companies by name or ticker symbol.
This database contains corporate information on over 25,000 U.S. public companies, over 35,000 foreign public companies, and over 34,000 private companies. Information available for each public company includes: A complete corporate history; Lists of subsidiaries, property holdings, and key personnel; Up to 25 years of annual and quarterly financial data; Up to 10 years of scanned, full-image annual reports, including SEC filings; Extensive information about the corporation's current long term debt; Links to recent news reports; Reports on insider and institutional owners; current and historical (past 15 years) firm descriptions, statistics, financial information and ratios, annual reports, mergers, acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures, long-term debt, capital stock, and insider trading. A variety of search options are available, including company name, ticker symbol, executive's name, auditor, country code, NAICS or SIC industry code, and selected financial characteristics and ratios.