GM 105 - Strategic Management

US and international companies with publicly traded stock on US stock exchanges are required to file documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These SEC documents are the source for financial information found in the resources listed below.

Ratio sourcebooks contain financial and operating ratios, and composite balance sheet and income statements for specific industries, usually arranged by SIC or NAICS numbers. They can be used to provide guidance when putting together the financial section of your business plan. These historic volumes are all available in print at 2 North Reference.

• Dun and Bradstreet Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios Ref HF 5681 .R25 I525
• RMA Annual Statement Studies Ref HF 5681 .R25 R6
• Almanac of Business and Industrial Financial Ratios Ref HF 5681 .R25 T68
• Financial Studies of the Small Business Ref. HD 2346 U5 F55a

Fundamental to conducting industry research is the classification of economic activity. The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system is widely used to classify US economic activity. This system was developed by the Office of Management and Budget and is still used by the SEC as well as in some business information publications.

In 1997, a new system of classification was instituted incorporating Canada, Mexico and the United States and was called the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS, pronounced "nakes" which rhymes with "snakes"). Today NAICS is used by the Census Bureau's Economic Census and in many business publications.

• SIC code lookup - Print version available at 2 North Ref HA 40 I6 U63 1987
• NAICS code lookup - Print version available at 2 North Ref. HF 1042 N6

A ticker symbol is a short abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular company. You can find these in many of the business databases or you can use free financial websites such as Yahoo! Finance.