Legal professionals working in business and securities law, will, from time to time, be required to do research on business and finance, and the business library at the University of Wisconsin is a great place to begin your research. The University of Wisconsin Business Library, is located in Room 2200 of Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave., and provides several online databases for business and economic research.
To view a list of their database, go to the Business Library's home page and select the drop down menu, Business Databases A to Z. A description of each database from this list is located in a separate drop down menu below Business Databases A to Z.
Financial News
Factiva - is a major online source for business and financial news. It provides
access to almost 9000 business, trade, and general publications,
including same day, full text access to the Wall Street Journal,
Barron's, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington
Post. ACCESS: Licensed access for UW-Madison students, faculty and staff; available from campus libraries, home or office.
Financial Reports
Fintel - provides financial metrics for over 2500 industries. The database
includes 3 reports: income statement and balance sheet data reported as
a percent to sales revenue, income statement and balance sheet data
reported in dollars, and 15 corporate ratios. ACCESS: Licensed access for UW-Madison students, faculty and staff; available from campus libraries, home or office.
International Finance
International Financial Statistics - consists of approximately 32,000 time series covering more than 200
countries and areas. It contains "current data on exchange rates,
international liquidity, international banking, money and banking,
interest rates, prices, production, international transactions
(including balance of payments and international investment position),
government finance, and national accounts. Information is presented in
tables for specific countries and in tables for area and world
aggregates." ACCESS: Licensed access for UW-Madison students, faculty, and staff.
Federal Statistical Abstracts and Reports
LexisNexis Statistical - contains abstracting and indexing data for more than 5,000 federal
statistical publications per year from 1973 to the present contained in
ASI (American Statistics Index). It also contains the full text of more
than 800 U.S. government statistical publications from 1995 to 1997,
including the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Starting in
1998, monthly updates add up to 650 full-text statistical publications
each year. In addition there are many links to full-text documents on
government Web sites (verified daily). Information and tables are
frequently available in a variety of formats, including GIF, XLS, CSV,
and PDF. ACCESS: Licensed access for UW-Madison students, faculty, staff; available from campus libraries, home or office.
Securities Filings/EDGAR filings
Mergent Online - is a fully searchable database of corporate information on 15,000 U.S.
public companies, 20,000 non-U.S. companies, both active and inactive,
as well as data for companies that were acquired, went backrupt,
liquidated or merged out of existence from 1995 onward. Company records
include annual reports, SEC filings, company history, mergers,
acquistions, disposals, joint ventures, description of business,
property, subsidiaries, officers and directors, news reports, long-term
debt, bond ratings, capital stock, annual stock price ranges, stock
splits, dividend payment history, income and cash flow statements,
balance sheet, auditors and the qualified auditors' report. ACCESS: Licensed access for UW-Madison students, faculty and staff; available from campus libraries, home or office.
OneSource - has market research on industry trends and analysts' reports in addition to detailed company information. ACCESS: Licensed access for UW-Madison students, faculty and staff; available from campus libraries, home or office.
Financial Data Sites Available on the Web:
Free Lunch requires registration and offers free economic, demographic and financial data. Free Lunch is a free service provided by Moody's Economy.com.
FRED - The United States Federal Reserve Board offers Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) which provides an economic time series database.
The Stock Exchanges now post their fact books on the Web. You can view the NYSE Facts & Figures at this site. You can also view financial information on the American Stock Exchange and Euronext on this site.
Submitted by Jenny Zook, Reference Librarian on October 1, 2009
This article appears in the categories: Law Library/IT
