Industry Financial Ratios
Finding Company and Industry Information

Print Sources Electronic Sources

Industry ratios or averages are generally used for analyzing the financial position of a company to the company's industry as a whole. These ratios may also be used to identify changes in the industry's financial performance over several years. If you need older industry ratios than what is provide by the print sources below, go to the 4th floor of the Library and look for older issues under the same call number.

Print Sources

Major Print Sources:

RMA Annual Statement Studies	Collection of ratios detailing financial statement information from over 150,000 statements of commercial bank borrowers and prospects. Contains 5 years of historical data.	Reference Area 658.15 R642s
Dun and Bradstreet Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios	Fourteen financial ratios plus common size/ percentage financial statements for over 800 SIC classifications. Based on over one million financial statements.	Reference Area 658.1512 I42
Troy's Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial Ratios	Features IRS data on 4.7 million U.S. corporations. Ten years worth of historical data.	Reference Area 658.15 A445
Financial Studies of the Small Business	Ratios of 70 business categories for over 3,000 small private companies earning less than $1M.	Reference Area 658.159 F4915f

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Electronic sources

For the financial ratios of an industry you can start by selecting Factiva from the A-Z List of Indexes and Databases.

When you come to the selection screen in Factiva (see below), click on the "Companies/Markets" tab:

This will take you to a screen where you can input the name or ticker symbol for the company. After you've entered your company information, click the "Search" button:

Click on the company name to display the financial information page for the company. This page includes various news items relating to the company as well as the financial reports. Scroll down to the "Reports" section and click on the "Comparison Report." This table will compare industry financial information to that of the company:

 

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