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Master of Energy Business: Public Companies

This Library Research Guide will introduce library resources relevant to students enrolled in the Master of Energy Business Program

Public Companies

This is a selected guide for research on Company Information in the McFarlin Library Collection.

Public Companies

Corporate financial reports (often called disclosure statements or filings) must be submitted to the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) by all publicly-traded companies. These disclosure statements provide the investing public with essential information about corporate activities.

This information is important for tracking company performance. The data are most useful when compared over a period of time. The reports are one of the first places to start company research.

There are several options for retrieving corporate financial filings.

  • You may request the documents directly from the company.  Telephone the company's headquarters and ask for the shareholders' relations office.
  • You may find many of the filings on Mergent Online.
  • SEC filings may be available in the EDGAR database on the Securities & Exchange Commission website, if the company has filed electronically.
  • Financial filings may also be available on a corporate Web site.

Financial Ratios

 Financial ratios provide a method for comparing one company to another or to an industry average. They are a valuable tool for analyzing financial statements.  Ratios are used to provide meaningful relationships between values.  They are used to compare average ratios for a particular industry or by comparing them over a period of time.

Sources for locating financial ratios include:

Mergent Online

Mergent Online's enhanced features and functions include the ability to:

  • Research 15 years of detailed financial statements
  • Customize viewing and output to retrieve precisely the information you need
  • Export company reports and financials into software applications such as Microsoft® Word, Microsoft® Excel or Adobe® Acrobat® Reader®
  • Execute accurate cross-border searches using a variety of financial and text variables
  • Compare multiple companies' reports
  • Access site via user ID or IP authentication
  • View more than 115,000 images of company annual reports" -- Mergent website

Rankings

Rankings are useful when comparing companies. They can provide a broad measure of performance within an industry.  Most company rankings are based on financial factors.  Sometimes, companies may be ranked by other measures, for example, number of employees.

Sources for locating company rankings include:

Best Industry Rankings

 

Market Share

Market share is considered an important indication of competitive strength. It is expressed as the percentage of total sales of a given market held by each competitor.

If you don't find market share information in secondary sources such as databases and websites, you may calculate an estimated market share. Divide your company's sales (if your company has only one type of product) or your product's sales (if your company has multiple products) by industry revenue.

Business Source Complete

Industry reports have market shares for main players. Articles may have market shares for companies or brands.

Nexis Uni

Search for articles that may have mentioned market shares.