We’re kicking off the new year with a new eResource Challenge!
Before we get to this month’s scenario, we want to congratulate Rita B. from CLP, the winner of last month’s challenge. Her chances of winning were pretty good since only 20 people submitted a response. Let’s all make a resolution to participate more in 2015. That includes the Digital Resources Committee. We resolve to do our best to post the monthly challenges on the day they are supposed to go live 😉 .
Despite the low numbers, the responses were impressive. Many of you indicated that you would show the patron how to set their preferred maturity settings in OverDrive, disable cover images, point them to our eReading Rooms especially for kids and teens , and/or recommend other eResources such as TumbleBooks and BookFlix.
And now, on to this month’s challenge. Here’s the scenario:
A patron calls and tells you he’s made a New Year’s resolution to start investing. He’s got a list of companies he’s considering investing in, but he wants to learn more about them. He’d like to find out their current value, how they have performed in the past, and what the professionals have to say about them. He’s also interested in whatever guides to investing we have to offer.
You know that Morningstar offers some great tools. What do you point him to specifically? Are there other resources you would suggest?
Submit your answer/tips in the comments section by Friday, January 16th to be eligible for a prize. (Comments are moderated, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t see your comment right away.)
In Morningstar, he can look up companies by name or ticker symbol to see their current stock value, historic value, and stock analysis from CPAs. Under the Help and Education tab, he should take advantage of the Investment Classroom, which has courses on stocks, bonds, and more – plus quizzes!
I would also recommend S&P’s NetAdvantage. In the Financial Education section, there are easy-to-read articles on investing basics. There are also industry surveys, company profiles, trends and projections that could be useful for someone just starting out, who may not know which companies to choose.
I wanted to try a database that I had not used before, so I tried Business Source Premier instead of Morningstar.
I used Business Source Premier to research information about Xerox and Starbucks.
The first result that appeared was a PDF copy of the SWOT analysis for each company (a report that detailed the strengths and weaknesses of the company). I think the SWOT analysis is a great resource for information about each company, not only because the information is current – it looks like it gets published once each quarter, four times a year- but also because it looks like business professionals conduct and present the research.
I also found some interesting magazine articles that helped me learn about the history and past performances of those companies. Business Source Premier displayed many articles like the ones above.
The only aspect of Business Source Premier that I think could negatively impact a patron’s research, is that the information is text-based instead of numbers-based. I think Morningstar would be a better resource if the patron wants to see numerical data instead of a document containing only text.
Morningstar is a great site that offers a vast variety of information. If the patron inputs his stock symbol, Morningstar will bring up everything that he is looking for, including analyst opinions and Morningstar’s opinion and a company profile. It also lists competitors and which mutual funds and ETF’s own the stock and how many shares are being shorted.
I would also direct him to Yahoo finance. They have historical prices for past performance and analysts expectations for future performance. They also offer reports, but most are not free.
Lastly, Morningstar’s regular site, Morningstar.com is free and they have an awesome stock comparison program in their tools section. It will rate different stocks by valuation, financials, past performance and actually evaluate them against each other according to your preferences. From these two sites you could probably get everything you need to know, except what the stock is going to do tomorrow!
First I would suggest a book or two on basic investing. The most useful database is Standard and Poor’s Net Advantage. There is a feature of the database called Outlook. It makes buy/sell recommendations on individual company stocks. Other databases which have company information include Business Source Premier, Mergent Intellect and Reference USA.
MorningStar is a good place to start. If one knows the ticker or name, one can search that way. It gives you company information, financial information, and other useful information. The Help and Education section in MorningStar looks useful, too. It has information about Database guides, Investment topics, and Investment classroom. One can also look at newsletters in MorningStar.
Business Source Premier is another good source. One can search under company profiles to find information about companies. One can click on PDF Market Line Report for information about the company.
The patron can also look in books about investing and finance. The patron can also check out DVDS about investing and finance.