Selected Resources
Accounting 318
Spring Semester, 2006
Table of Contents
Overview and Best Resources
This course includes a group project in which you perform a detailed analysis of the financial statements of two companies in an industry that interests you. You will need to learn about the company, access its annual reports to shareholders and certain SEC filings, obtain comparative industry information, and financial market information useful in valuation exercises. This page contains an annotated list of the reference sources you are most likely to need in ACCT 318. A detailed list of other resources you may need to consult from time to time follows the Overview and Best Resources section.

Company Financial Information (Quantitative)

  1. Company Web Pages, e.g., Dell Inc.: Includes annual reports to shareholders (financial statements) and other company related information.
  2. Factiva:Selected financial statement information from the Reuters database. Click on the Company/Markets section financial reports.
  3. Standard & Poor's Market Insight: Selected financial statement information from the Compustat database; click on Excel Analytics.
  4. Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar: SEC Filings, e.g., 10K report

Journal Indexes (Qualitative)

  1. ABI-Inform Global: This indexes journal articles with some articles that are full text
  2. Accounting and Tax Index (Print Only),016.657/A512ab: Principal index for accounting and tax articles. Available in PRINT ONLY.

Industry Ratios( These important resources are available ONLY in print)

  1. Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios: 338.5/I42/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks.
  2. RMA Annual Statement Studies: 338/R642/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks
Books
There are two resources that will assist in locating items in the Lehigh University Libraries. It is:
  1. ASA, The Library’s Online Catalog. This lists all the items in the library and their location.

Remember: Use ASA to locate books, journals, A-V materials, and CD-ROMs. Journal articles are NOT indexed in ASA.

Industry Information
These resources can be used to locate information on industries. They are:
  1. Associations Unlimited. Good for finding the industry's association and other related associations.
  2. Investext. It has analyst reports covering more than 11,000 U.S. and international companies and 53 industries. These reports come from top Wall Street and international brokerage firms.
  3. Journal indexes list articles on industries. See the Journal Index section for a listing of indexes
  4. Standard and Poor's Market Insight. This includes a variety of information. It includes industry, stock, country, and company. It has the Industry Surveys.
Industry Ratios
  1. Almanac of Business and Financial Ratios. 338.973/T864/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve and earlier editions in the stacks.
  2. Factiva. This information is available through the Company/Market section.
  3. Industry Norms and Key Business Rations. 338.5/I42/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve with earlier editions in the stacks. Produced by Dun and Bradstreet.
  4. RMA Annual Statement Studies. 338/R642/FM-1-Ref. Latest on Reserve and earlier editions in the stacks.
Company and Stock Information
These resources are good for finding information on companies. They are:
  1. Company Web Sites. These site provide good quantitative and qualitative information. REMEMBER:The companies that issue the information maintain these pages.
  2. Factiva. The Company/Markets search has the financial information including 5 years of annual financials and latest six quarters of financial information.
  3. SEC Edgar Database. (See World Wide Web for description.) Its URL is http://www.sec.gov/.
  4. Standard and Poor's Market Insight. This resource provides quantitative and qualitative data on companies and industries. It includes access to the SEC's Edgar database and S&P's Industry Surveys.
Journal Indexes
Locating articles with quantitative and qualitative information on companies and industries may be found using these indexes. Some indexes have full text articles. They are:
  1. ABI-Inform Global. Indexes over 1400 journals in management and business. Coverage is from 1987 for most journals. About 45% of the articles are available in full text.
  2. ABI-Inform Trade & Industry. Indexes resources with a trade or industry focus
  3. Accounting and Tax Index. Available only in print and is shelved in Index Section, Reference, Fairchild Library. Its former name is the Accountant's Index, Supplement. This indexes the accounting literature and is available only in citation format.
  4. Econlit. A good index for the research journals that cover company information from a business and economic perspective.
  5. Factiva. It has over 10000+ publications (full text) with some back to the early 1980's.
World Wide Web
Using a search engine, e.g., Google, you will find information that may be useful.  Examples are government, associations, and companies.   They provide facts, figures, and reports that may be important to your research.  There are multi-search engines that makes searching the Web more efficient.  Dogpile.com is an example of these multi-search engines.  Its URL is http://www.dogpile.com.  Remember: anyone can put up a web page with information. Is the information on the web page reliable?

Statistical Resources on the Web are:

  1. Company Web Pages. These are good sources of financial information but the companies that issue the information maintain these pages.
  2. SEC Edgar Database. This has the 10K reports from publicly traded companies.

These are additional sites for statistics on the economy. They are:

  1. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Its URL is http://www.bea.doc.gov/.
  2. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its URL is http://www.bls.gov/.
  3. Federal Statistics site. Its URL is http://www.fedstats.gov/.
  4. U.S. Census Bureau. Its URL is http://www.census.gov/.
There are additional resources including web sites that can assist you in locating information on an industry, legal information, marketing, statistics, etc. The first two are related to accounting. They are:
  1. American Accounting Association. Its URL is http://aaahq.org/index.cfm. Or for the RAW site, its URL is http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/.
  2. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Its URL is http://www.aicpa.org.
These web sites are related to industries and may provide additional information. They are:
  1. Aerospace Industries Association of America (AIA). URL is http://www.aia-aerospace.org/.
  2. National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS). URL is http://www.nacds.org.
  3. National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC). URL is http://www.npcnow.org.
  4. National Restaurant Association. URL is http://www.restaurant.org.
IMPORTANT NOTE
For more financial resources, please refer to the Selected Resources for MBA 402
Created on 3/13/06 by W. Fincke, Business Librarian.
Office: Rm. 343, Rauch Business Center.
Hours: Mon.-Fri., 8-4:30.
Phone: 83052.
Email: wjf0@lehigh.edu
URL is http://www.lehigh.edu/library/guides/guides.html.