© 2000 John Petroff
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© 2000 John Petroff |
2)- Industry information
The most important source of information for a specific industry are publications of trade associations. However, when making comparisons between industries, such publications are inappropriate. This can be done with the help of government statistics and reports from specialized agencies, which are compiled and prepared in a uniform format. The business press is again mandatory reading for this type of investigation.
a)- Trade associations
Practically every industry has its trade association which publishes
a magazine, organizes meetings and acts as promoter for its members.
In such magazines, one will find the most up-to-date statistics
and projections of market size, trends, resource needs and occasionally
costs. They are usually most informative on the impact of current
or proposed legislation, major problem areas affecting its members
and recent technological developments.
b)- Government
The US Department of Commerce publishes
an annual "Industrial Outlook" which summarizes the
major anticipated trends of each major sector. The "Quarterly
Financial Report for Manufacturing Corporations" offers aggregated
data by company assets size. The Bureau of Census publishes several
annual reports on manufacturers, retail trade and wholesale trade.
Many other government publications may have to be consulted to
study trends that may impact on specific industries, such as that
from Bureau of Census (for demographic patterns), Labor Department
(for employee availability and cost), Department of the Interior
(for issues related to government land), and so on. See also the
data sources listed under economic data sources. Locating government
sources can be most convenient through http://www.fedstats.gov/.
c)- Specialized services
- Standard & Poor "Industry Survey" is a very thorough
analysis of current and future trends based on statistics in numerous
industries ( http://www.standardandpoors.com/).
- Value Line "Investment Survey" presents convenient
one page summaries of stock market behavior by industry with tips
on numerous companies within the industry ( http://www.valueline.com/) .
- Robert Morris Associates (RMA at
http://www.rmahq.com/) "Annual
Statement Studies" compiles ratios for over 800 industries
from over 80,000 companies presented historically, by size of
assets and by size of sales. RMA is an association of banks which
gathers information from its associates and is the most complete
and authoritative source of comparative data for loan officers.
The data is also available by region. The data can be downloaded,
or it can be purchased on CD or in print for approximately the
same price as the download. RMA data is cited throughout the chapters
and further explained in Chapter
5 Section D-1.
- Dun & Bradstreet "Key Business Ratios" is a condensed
brochure of ratios for over one hundred industry groups ( http://www.dnb.com/).
This convenient brochure used to be free.
- Leo Troy: "Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial
Ratios" (Prentice-Hall).
- Compustat has compiled historical
annual and quarterly financial data on some 10,000 corporations
grouped into industrials, banks, utilities, OTC companies, bankrupt
companies and Canadian companies. The data is available on CD.
Compustat is now handled by S&P and it is on-line at http://www.compustat.com/www/.
Many full service brokers and investment companies also publish
their research; most notable are those of Smith Barney and Kidder,
Peabody & Co.
See review questions Q-1D2.1 to Q-1D2.3
See research assignment R-1D2.1.
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