Armacost Library: BUSINESS: Company and Industry Research

Description

Conducting research on a given company or industry requires you to delve into a specific set of information resources.

Company annual reports, SEC filings, economic censuses, investment reports, and global trade data are great sources for raw statistics and values, providing excellent primary source material for your research.
Professional and academic analysis of these types of data in the form of published analyst reports, SWOT analyses, and trade and scholarly articles provide much-needed secondary source material as well.
NAICS/SIC code look-up: Pinpoint the industry of interest by looking up its North American Industry Classification System, or Standard Industry Classification code first.

Please see the list of resources to the right for suggestions of where to begin, and as ever, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact your librarian.

Recommended Databases and Online Resources

Mergent Intellect This link opens in a new window
Profiles and financial information for over 100 million public and private companies worldwide.
Value Line This link opens in a new window
Ratings, financial data, and analyst commentaries on frequently traded stocks. Useful for company and industry research.
Key Business Ratios This link opens in a new window
Provides business ratios for public and private companies based on data collected by Dun & Bradstreet.
IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Detailed reports on over 1,300 US industries including supply chain information on the market, historical and forecasted revenue data, operating strengths and weaknesses, analysis of external drivers, the competitive landscape and major players, and industry profit and costs benchmarks. Also includes expert summary reports and specialized reports on niche industries. Search or browse industry reports by key word of NAICS code.

GuideStar
This database of not-for-profit organizations has current information, including 990 forms, annual reports and more. Just sign up for a free account from the homepage, and research away!
Economic Census
View publicly available data taken in the 2017 U.S. Economic Census and its predecessors.
SEC Filings
Use the Security and Exchange Commission's EDGAR search tool to view publicly available quarterly and annual reports filed by publicly traded companies.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Industrial statistics within geographical regions regarding employment, wages, and related data.
American FactFinder
View statistics on population, income, housing, education, language and more gathered by the US Census Bureau, searchable for any community in the United States
CIA World Factbook
Provides information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.

World Bank Data Catalog This link opens in a new window
Free access to all data collected in the World Bank Open Data Initiative, including the full contents of the World Development Indicators (WDI) and Global Development Finance (GDF) databases. Use the tabs at the top to view data by country, topic, indicator, and more.
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository This link opens in a new window
The World Bank's official open access repository, containing thousands of books, working papers and annual reports, including World Development Reports.