F321 Research Assignment

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F321 Research Assignment

• A Brief Guide

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Industries

• To survey an industry, its often easiest to find
  a pre-existing overview, where someone has done
  the work for you. Such overviews are found in
  SP NetAdvantage or OneSources US Business
  Browser , for example. These canned reports
  often have a prose discussion industry
  statistics. Investment analyst reports can offer
  a review of industry trends, highlighting its
  prospects for investment.
• A more in-depth research tool is the market
  research report. These typically are produced
  by Forrester, Gartner, and others, and are often
  longer and more detailed than the surveys noted
  above. Or they may contain more esoteric
  information on particular facets of the industry.
  In addition to the above, report collections are
  available via MarketResearch.com, Mintel.
• Otherwise, you can pursue any metrics by which
  you want to assess an industry -- statistics,
  management changes, recent trends -- by seeking
  out the databases which target them. For
  example, industry news is searchable in Factiva,
  which covers many newspapers and trade journals.

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Analyzing industries

• Finding the right industry
• Industry overviews
• Canned pre-fab overviews with descriptions,
  statistics, lists of top players
• Market research
• Usually offers greater depth research into
  industries than Industry Overviews
• Analyst reports
• Industry analysts reports can focus on
  specific industries prospects
• Industry trends
• Trends, industry forecasts, and the relation
  of the industry to the Economy
• Special issues
• Industry magazines often have annual
  sections that identify the general developments
  in the industry, trends, and forecasts. Consult
  the Information Desk

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Firms

• In selecting a firm, you can screen industries by
  any number of criteria -- market
  capitalization, financials, volatility measures,
  earnings. Some databases make this relatively
  easy. OneSources US Business Browser or
  Thomson One Banker Analytics allows quick
  screening by market capitalization and industry.
  The Bloomberg system also offers an equities
  screening function by a number of parameters (it
  is not on the GSB network, but is located in
  Jackson Library.) Capital IQ is another option
  for doing scans with various criteria.
• Alternatively, you may scan for a candidate firm
  using other, non-empirical measures, e.g.
  corporate strategies, analyst appraisals, changes
  in the company structure. Making this kind of
  determination can require more work, e.g.
  reviewing recent corporate news items in Factiva,
  ABI Inform or analyst reports via Reuters
  Research On Demand.

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Selecting your firm

• Screen for market cap
• Thomson One Banker Analytics
• Bloomberg (in Jackson Library Traders Pit)
• Screen for other characteristics
• Stock market performance
• Bloomberg (in Jackson Library Traders Pit)
• Financials
• Thomson One Banker Analytics
• Industry peers
• OneSources US Business
  Browser
• Recent news
• Factiva
• Future outlook

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Studying your firm

• Financials
• Thomson One Banker Analytics
• OneSource US Business Browser
• Compustat
• Products
• Hoovers Online
• Performance
• CRSP
• First Call Historical Database
• Bloomberg (in Jackson Library Traders
  Pit)
• Trends and projections
• Reuters Research On-Demand
• Zacks Earnings Forecaster (Table A,
  Reference Room)