Interview Preparation: Researching Companies, Industries, and Stocks


These resources were selected for their authority, ease of use, and accessibility. If you need more assistance, please contact the Watson Library research librarians.

Additional resources can be found in CLIO, the library catalog. For news and research tips from the Watson Library, please visit the Watson Library Blog.

We also recommend keeping in contact with the Office of MBA Career Services as they offer a number of other resources to assist you.

Resources marked with this symbol are restricted to Columbia affiliates.


Searching for Company & Industry Information in Journals or Magazines

Find Articles

Search across these three databases by entering words in the box below:

  • ABI/INFORM Global
  • Business Source Complete
  • Factiva
  • ABI/Inform on ProQuest Direct
    ABI indexes articles from over 1,700 business publications (academic, professional, and popular journals are all included) Approximately 700 of these titles are full-text. ABI also provides Hoover's Company Capsules for companies. When a company's name appears in the text of an article, the name will contain a hyperlink that will direct you to the Company Capsule for the company. ABI Inform is updated daily.
  • Business Source Complete
    Covers all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, accounting, finance, international business, econometrics and economics. Contains full text of the Harvard Business Review, California Management Review and other important journals. BSP also includes country reports from EIU and Global Insight as well as company reports from Datamonitor.
  • Factiva
    Factiva is a good resource for finding company and industry information. Factiva contains 6,000 publications, including academic and trade publications, industry newsletters, international and regional newspapers, business magazines, and business newswires. In Factiva, use the default search screen to search for information about your company or an industry. Both databases are updated daily.
  • LexisNexis Academic
    Lexis-Nexis offers access to thousands of information sources including the full text of newspapers
    (foreign and domestic), magazines, wire services, newsletters, broadcast transcripts, and financial filings. Lexis Nexis updated daily.
  • TheDeal Pipeline

Company Financial & Operating Information

  • Bloomberg
    Business Electronic Resources
    (Library Use Only)
    Bloomberg offers comprehensive information on companies and their securities. Using Bloomberg you can retrieve overviews of companies, their financial information, ownership data, debt ratings, etc. To obtain company information, type:
    Ticker Symbol <Equity> <Go>
    (i.e. IBM <equity> <go>)
    This brings you to a menu of options leading to detailed company descriptions, earnings estimates, analyst coverage & recommendations, etc.
  • OSIRIS
    OSIRIS is a comprehensive database of listed corporates, banks and insurance companies around the world. In addition to the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow and ratios, it contains news, ownership, ratings, earnings estimates and stock data. Covers over 120 countries, includes 25,000 publicly listed corporates (10,000 US and 15,000 non-US) 1,500 banks, and 350 insurance companies.
  • Thomson ONE
    Thomson ONE provides access to financial data on public companies, as well as merger and acquisition information and market data. Users can search and screen across databases to identify companies that meet your specific investment criteria as well as conduct peer analysis.

Stock & Analyst Reports

  • Thomson ONE
    Thomson ONE contains full-text investment research reports supplied by leading investment banks, brokerage firms, and third party providers.
  • Standard and Poor's Stock Reports
    Available through Standard and Poor's Net Advantage
    Thousands of stocks are profiled and the search interface allows you to screen stocks by P/E Ratio, Earnings Per Share etc. This is a good tool when researching off-campus. For more detailed stock screening, use Bloomberg or Datastream.
  • Value Line Investment Survey
    Print available in reference stacks: HG4501 .V262

    ValueLine contains stock reports for thousands of publicly traded companies. Each report contains financial data, ratios, analyst commentary, quarterly sales, EPS, dividends, capital structure, beta, price projections, insider & institutional decisions, and a long term price chart.

Annual Reports & SEC Filings

See also the research guide: U.S. Corporate Filings and Annual Reports

There are many resources available to help you find company reports and filings. The following table indicates the reports and filings contained in each database. Directly below the table are descriptions of each of these resources and information about how to access them.

  Annual Reports 10k 10q Proxy Statement
(DEF-14A)
Prospectus
(Form S-1)
20f
Bloomberg Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company)
Company Home Pages Usually Yes Varies Varies Varies Varies Varies
Edgar (SEC) *Sometimes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Factiva No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Thomson Research Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company) Yes (dates vary by company)

*Annual reports are provided only if the company chooses to file them with the SEC.

  • Bloomberg
    Business Electronic Resources (Library Use Only)
    Bloomberg contains EDGAR filings. To get a list of a company's EDGAR filings, type: "[ticker symbol] <EQUITY> <GO>" . Bloomberg has filings back to 1993.
  • Company Home Pages
    One of the best places to find a company's annual reports and filings is that company's home page. Most public companies have an "investor relations" page on their website that provides annual report(s) and/or SEC filings.
  • EDGAR: The Official Securities Exchange Commission filings database
    EDGAR is the key database for SEC filings; almost all financial, operations, and ownership data is derived from documents in the EDGAR database. The Securities Exchange Commission's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system (EDGAR), performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of SEC filings. Not all documents filed with the Commission by public companies are available on EDGAR; for example, filings by foreign companies are not required to be filed on EDGAR, but some of these companies do so voluntarily.
  • Factiva
    Full-text database providing timely and detailed facts, figures and analyses of companies, industries and financial markets. Includes industry and trade publications, news sources, and company and market data. Coverage varies by source.
  • Thomson Research
    Thomson Research contains real-time and historical SEC EDGAR filings, scanned images of company annual reports and foreign exchange filings.

Company Histories

  • International Directory of Company Histories
    Available via Business and Company Resource Center
    Print available in reference stacks: HD2721 .I581988
    The International Directory of Company Histories delivers exactly what the title promises, company histories. Each history is generally two or more pages in length, all include a brief bibliography. To be included, companies must have at least $500 million (US) in annual sales or be a leader in their industry. A comprehensive index for the series is found in the latest volume.
  • Notable Corporate Chronologies
    Available via Business and Company Resource Center
    Presents concise chronologies for approximately 1800 of the most significant corporations currently operating in the U.S. and abroad. Coverage focuses on both major, established companies and on notable newcomers who have had a major impact on the American or world economies, standard of living and lifestyles.

Industry Overviews & Market Research

  • Business and Company Resource Center
    Business & Company Resource Center brings together a variety of global business information. Resources in the database include: Company profiles (including corporate parent/sibling relationships), Industry ranking, Products and brands, Stock prices, Investment reports, Industry statistics, Corporate chronologies and histories, Consumer marketing data, Emerging technology reports, Industry newsletter news and analysis, and Business journal news and analysis.
  • Faulkner's Advisory for IT Studies
    Virtual library of reports covering IT infrastructure, telecom, data networking, wireless communications, security, enterprise systems, the Internet and World Wide Web, as well as technology vendors. FAITS also links to technology and business news resources such as Nando Net, The New York Times, Financial Times, NewsBytes, and the BBC.
  • Forrester Research (includes Jupiter Communications)
    Forrester's research publications analyze a range of technology areas such as new media, computing, software, networking, telecommunications and the Internet, and project how technology trends will affect businesses, consumers, and society. Forrester reports include industry statistics, as well as graphs and charts.
  • Global Market Information Database
    GMID contains over a million demographic, economic and marketing statistics for 205 countries worldwide. The database also contains 6-year historic market size data for more than 330 consumer products in 52 countries, plus 5-year forecasts.  Coverage: 1977 to present, forecasts to 2016.
  • Standard & Poor's Industry Surveys [via S&P Net Advantage]
    Each survey is divided into two parts. 1) the basic analysis which contains an examination of prospects for that industry followed by composite industry data & a comparative company analysis 2) the current analysis which contains the latest developments and some industry and company statistics.
  • Thomson ONE
    Includes industry overviews from wall street analysts.  Click on "Research" from menu on the left and then choose "Conduct a Research Report Search" to search for industry reports.
  • Value Line Investment Survey and Value Line Investment Survey Expanded Edition
    Print available in reference stacks: HG4501 .V262
    1-2 page summaries including information on the timeliness of the industry; relative strength, statistics, and an overview of the industry by an analyst.

Sources Containing League Tables

  • Thomson ONE
    League Tables for the Last Year for M&A, Equity, Debt Issues or Loans
    1. Click on the Deals tab on the menu bar at top of the screen and then click on League Tables in the appropriate tab [Choose from M&A, Equity, Bonds or Loans].
    2. League Tables for deals for a specific financial or legal advisor for a specific time frame
    3. Click on the Deals tab on the menu bar at the left and then click on Advanced Search from the menu on the left. 
    4. Choose the appropriate category [Equity, Debt or M&A].  Hit the Continue button.
    5. From the Advisors/Fee menu choose Target or Acquiror Financial Advisors and search for the advisor.  Then click Apply to Search
    6. Under the Deal Info menu choose Date Announced or Date Effective if you wish to limit your search to a specific time frame. 
    7. When done click Execute Search
    8. To output your results click on Rankings at bottom of screen and choose from the League Table folder.  Add to search and click Execute Search.
  • Bloomberg
    Business Electronic Resources (Library Use Only)
    • For Equity or Debt League Tables:
      Enter LEAG and hit the GO key
    • For M&A League Tables:
      Enter MA and hit the GO key . Click on #7 M&A League Table Search

Biographical Information on Industry Persons

  • Biography Resource Center with Marquis Who's Who
    Full-text biographical information on over one million people throughout world history and from all over the world. Information taken from many standard biographical directories, articles from 250 magazines, and more than 900,000 "thumbnail biographies" from the Marquis Who's Who publications.
  • Bloomberg
    Business Electronic Resources (Library Use Only)
    To find biographical information in Bloomberg, simply type an individual's name and hit the <HELP> key. This will retrieve corresponding records in the people section of Bloomberg.
  • Factiva
    Factiva can be a good source of biographical information. Search for information using the individual's name in the news section of the database. If the name is common, add other keywords to refine your search (e.g. Intel, if they work for Intel).
  • LexisNexis Academic (click on People)
    Lexis-Nexis offers access to thousands of information sources including the full text of newspapers
    (foreign and domestic), magazines, wire services, newsletters, broadcast transcripts, and financial filings. Lexis Nexis updated daily.

How Do I Screen Stocks?

  • Bloomberg
    Business Electronic Resources (Library Use Only)
    You can use Bloomberg to perform advanced screens of stocks and companies. To get to the screening interface enter  ESRC <GO>. Follow the prompts to build a search.
  • OSIRIS
    OSIRIS is a comprehensive database of listed corporates, banks and insurance companies around the world. In addition to the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow and ratios it contains news, ownership, ratings, earnings estimates and stock data. Covers over 120 countries, includes 25,000 publicly listed corporates (10,000 US and 15,000 non US) 1,500 banks, and 350 insurance companies.
  • Standard and Poor's Stock Reports
    Available through Standard and Poor's Net Advantage
    Thousands of stocks are profiled and the search interface allows you to screen stocks by P/E Ratio, Earnings Per Share etc. This is a good tool when researching off-campus. For more detailed stock screening, use Bloomberg or Datastream.
  • Thomson ONE
    Thomson ONE provides access to financial data on public companies, as well as merger and acquisition information and market data. Users can search and screen across databases to identify companies that meet your specific investment criteria as well as conduct peer analysis.

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