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There is a popular cliché that “data is the new oil”; now, data is not just the new oil but more valuable than oil. In recent years, technologies have been developed to help organisations capture relevant data from internal and external sources to foster business and investment-related decision-making. Advance data analytics, machine learning, connected devices (otherwise known as the internet of things or IoT), cloud computing, to mention but a few, are technologies enabling the generation, collection, and analysis of big data. Management and business leaders use historical financial data, current realities within and outside the organisation and macro-economic variables to obtain insights about the exposure risks of the business, its opportunities and general market dynamics.
It suffices to say that it is difficult, if not impossible, for an outsider to access a company’s internal data beyond what it deliberately put out for public consumption. It will surprise you to know that even an external auditor may not see more than meets the eyes. I speak from experience. Hence, the objective of this piece is to point finance professionals to reliable platforms to shop for external financial and market data of companies and accompanying experts’ analysis thereon. I selected the following data sources, amongst others, based on my experience as an external auditor and financial analyst.
- SEC EDGAR, companies house, and other country’s SEC
SEC EDGAR is the acronym for Securities and Exchange Commission Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system. The online database provides researchers with free public access to a pool of corporate information, allowing researchers to research public companies’ financial information and operations by reviewing their filings with the SEC. You can obtain years of historical data of any US public company on SEC EDGAR. In addition to this, public interest companies such as Mutual Fund, Hedge Fund, Equity Traded Fund, Pension Managers also have their financial statements published on the platform. Similarly, if you are looking for historical financial statements of a UK company, you can check up “company house,” which houses financial data of UK limited companies.
Here is the link to US EDGAR https://bit.ly/3jVIQTg
2. Industry regulatory authorities
There are usually global or local regulatory authorities established by the act of parliament and saddled with regulating respective industries and providing oversight functions. For example, OPEC regulates the oil and gas industry, Central banks for banks, NAIC (USA) for the insurance industry, TPR (UK) for pension managers etc. You will retrieve loads of financial and market data of any industry or a specific company from the regulatory agency’s official website. In addition, some regulators publish industry average data that would help perform various ad hoc financial and business analyses.
3. Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Capital IQ
S&P Capital IQ is the research division of S&P Global, one of the world’s largest providers of ratings, data, research, and the S&P Dow Jones Indices. It is a market intelligence platform trusted by many finance professionals globally. It provides an unrivalled and breath-taking depth of data and experts’ analyses of all public companies globally. Imagine a single platform for all the essential intelligence needed by investment bankers, equity research analysts, investment managers, credit managers, private equity analysts, venture capitalists, and corporate organisations to source required information. This is what Capital IQ represents. The following are a few kind of the information you can extract from the Capital IQ platform:
- Listed companies’ financials, estimates, ownership, and transaction
- Robust industry data including banks, insurance, real estate, mining, technology, media, beverages etc.
- Latest merger and acquisition data from different industries across the globe
- Private companies’ financial and market data, which ordinarily is hard to get.
- Credit risk indicators
- Share prices
Capital IQ provides an alternative to SEC EDGAR for automated Excel-based financial and market data retrieval instead of gathering information manually.
Link to S&P Capital IQ https://bit.ly/3yPQW69
4. Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence is the research arm of Bloomberg LP which provides expert analysis and data to helps users make informed investment decisions. Bloomberg Intelligence covers over 100 industries and over 1,400 companies globally. In addition, Bloomberg Intelligence also provides macro-economic data of many countries. This helps researchers understand the politics and macro-economic variables of the country of interest.
For instance, if you want to research Tesla, you need to log on to the Bloomberg website, type in BIP (i.e., Bloomberg Intelligence Primer), and navigate to Tesla. On Tesla Primer, you will be able to review information about the company, its strategy, summary of revenue, profitability, latest earning, and analysis of critical topics. Bloomberg Intelligence helps finance professionals, researchers and companies make decisions with confidence.
Link to BI https://bloom.bg/3CJRjS9
5. Market Screener
Market Screener is another powerful platform that provides free and open-source financial and market data for all public companies worldwide. Market Screener reprocesses financial data and analysis technical patterns for all listed companies, globally, being followed by at least two analysts and ranks them depending on 14 fundamental ratings and 13 technical ratings. The power of big data analytics provides financial data, global coverage, and analysts’ estimates needed for research.
In addition, a summary of a company’s business, its management, significant shareholders, historical and forecasted financial data and valuation metrics are available for retrieval. Therefore, as a financial analyst, financial modeller, or researcher, you can only imagine the ocean of information you can swim in when you consult Market Screener.
Link to market screener website https://www.marketscreener.com/
6. Equity research analysts report
Equity research analysts work for both buy-side and sell-side firms in the securities industry, producing research reports, projections, and recommendations surrounding companies and stocks. You can find hands-on information about the global and local stock market outlook integrated with quantitative strategies and factor analysis in an equity research analyst report.. You can find equity research reports on Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo Securities, JP Morgan etc.
7. Press releases
A press release is an official document about a particularly timely and news-worthy event of an organisation. The whole essence of a press release is to keep journalists, editors and the public updated on current relevant information about the company. These are a sample of topics that are worthy of a press release: starting a new business or renaming an existing business, launching a new operating segment or product line, opening a satellite office, announcing a partnership or merger and acquisition, receiving an award, announcing a public speaking engagement etc. You can extract a lot of information from a press release that would influence your financial model inputs and hence, investment decision in a particular company.
Tesla Q2 press release https://bit.ly/3soCsrf
8. Company’s website, blog, and social media pages
If you are looking for information about any company, your first point of call should be its website and, by extension, its official blog and social media pages. Public companies usually make their historical financial statements available in the investor relations section or provide a link to a public platform (such as SEC EDGAR).
Conclusion
Finance professionals are traditionally known for handling and analysing data to help management make informed decisions. Unfortunately, internally generated data are grossly insufficient to provide solid and reliable financial strategy recommendations to management; hence, the need to shop for information from external sources. In this article, I provided readers with external sources for financial and market data, which can be incorporated into financial models, charts and make you an indispensable superstar to management.
