Investigating companies using Factiva.com

Factiva has a nice charting function which makes it possible to create a stock chart for companies. In addition you can read news articles surrounding specific dates in a chart. First you need to chart a company. You can use the symbol look up option to search for companies using their names or their Ticker symbols. An example of a chart is shown here:

You can use the mouse to go over a specific line of a stock in the chart. When you do a popup with date information will appear for that stock:

When you click the line at a specific date the Factiva database will do a search in the news sources part of the database. The next screen that appears shows the news or magazine articles in a fourteen week period surrounding this date. Sample screen:

Author information: LinkedIn

10:29 PM - 22 January 2009

Financial data & Factiva.com

Factiva has company information from annual reports going back 5 years. The financial news database Factiva.com also has information on Stocks, Funds, Currencies and Common Market Indexes. The frequency of this kind of information is daily (2 years). It is also possible to choose a weekly, monthly or an annual frequency (which goes back 5 years) for the data.

The data can be gathered and saved for spreadsheet programs like Excel and SPSS. It is also possible to create charts and compare items. This option is available from the Companies/Markets menu under Charting. This is a quick and easy way to create nice charts for a limited number of stocks without having to use a spreadsheet program.

The first example shows a comparison of a few stocks. You can use the symbol look up option to search for companies using their names or their ticker symbols.

The second example shows a comparison for some indexes which can also include stocks. If you want to do this you need to take the following steps:

• First got to the Quotes section through the menu
• Select the option Common Market Index
• Choose one of the indexes and click the button "Get quote"
• Now choose the option Get Interactive Chart below the chart
• In the next screen add indexes and/or stocks you want to compare
• When you are finished adding items use the button "Redraw Chart"

Author information: LinkedIn

11:27 PM - 4 November 2008