This database provides descriptions of companies (Company Capsules), annual and quarterly financial data, industry analyses, recent news articles, and specialized information, such as patents and political contributions.  It can be accessed from off-campus computers.  This guide describes the free version and free external sites linked to it.  Items marked with a yellow key  are available only to paying subscribers and are not described here.
 

Searching for Companies by Keywords	Searching for Companies by Financial Criteria
Search Results	Saving and Printing Information
Company Capsule Page	Financials Page
News & Analysis Page	Industry Page
Searching for Industry Information	Other Features

Access:

• Click on Netscape.
• If not in the Library, go to the Library Home Page (http://www.lib.wsc.ma.edu/)
• Click on Hoover's Online, which is listed under Quick Links to Databases.
• Alternatively, go directly to the Hoover's Online website (http://www.hoovers.com).

• The Search menu is near the top of the page.  The following options are listed in the drop menu:
• Company retrieves companies whose names or ticker symbols include the series of letters that you type in the box.  Example: searching for anf retrieves Abercrombie and Fitch (ticker symbol ANF), Banfi Vintners, and Canfor Corp.
• Ticker retrieves companies by their exact ticker symbols.
• Keyword retrieves companies by the words or phrases that appear in their names, the names of their executives, or their Company Capsules.
• People retrieves the first or last names of executives.
• Type a word or phrase in the search box and click on Go.
• If you searched by Company, Ticker, or Keyword, a list of companies is displayed.
• To the right of a company name, click on Capsule, At a Glance (a very brief description if no Capsule is available), or Financials.
• If you searched by People, a list of names appears, with their associated companies.  Click on the link to a company name.

• Click on Power Tool in the upper-right part of the page.
• Click on the Stock Screener tab.
• If you wish to limit your search to a specific stock exchange or industry group, select from the drop menus near the top.
• A list of financial variables, each with a minimum and maximum search box, is in the yellow area.  Fill in one or more boxes with numbers.  Do not enter % signs.

 
• To search for a range of numbers, fill in both boxes, with the smaller number in the left box.  With negative numbers, remember that, for example,  -10 is smaller than -5.
• To search for a minimum number, fill in only the left box.
• To search for a maximum number, fill in only the right box.
• To search for an exact number, fill in both boxes with that number.
• Click on the dark yellow Go button in the lower right.
• Companies that match all of your criteria will be retrieved.

The search results include one or more of the following lists:

• Hoover's Company Name & Ticker Matches with links to the pages:
• Capsule: company description (described below)
• At a Glance: very brief description when no Capsule is provided.
• Financials: basic data (described below).
• Other available pages are News & Analysis (described below) and Industry (described below).  Find these by clicking on the appropriate tab in the other pages.
• CorpTech Matches: a database of 50,000 high-tech companies with specialized descriptions and news sources.  Can also be searched from the CorpTech website (http://www.corptech.com/).
• "Sounds Like" Matches: click on Generate a List to find similar-sounding company names.

Only one page or frame can be saved or printed at a time, using the Netscape commands.

• Saving: Insert a 3.5" diskette in the floppy drive.  If the screen is divided into frames, click on the frame you wish to save.  Use the Save As command from the File menu of your browser.  The file will be saved in HTML format unless you specify Plain Text or give the file the extension .txt.
• Printing: If the screen is divided into frames, click on the frame you wish to print.  Use the Print command from the File menu.

WHITE AREA

• Directory information, a link to the company's Web page, and a brief description of the company's lines of business and current prospects.
• Links to Subsidiaries/Affiliates Covered by Hoover's Online (if any).
• Links to the Company Capsules of the company's Top Competitors.
• Links to News & Commentary on the company, often including the company's own press releases.

• Key Numbers
• Click on the ticker symbol for current quotes on stock prices.  Example:


• Rank in selected lists, such as the Fortune 500.
• Sales, income, and number of employees, with annual growth rates of these numbers.
• Key People: names of senior executives, with links to more information on the company website.
• Key Resources
• Annual Report: a link to a report on the company website.
• Investor Relations: a link to the relevant page on the company website.
• SEC Filings: 10-K and other reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.  For those filed in the last 24 hours, see FreeEdgar (http://www.freeedgar.com)
• Brokerage Research Reports: professional analyses, most of which require payment.  Many of these are available free to WSC on-campus users through General BusinessFile ASAP.
• Insider Trades Reports: a list of stock trades by company officers in the last two years, from Insider Trader (http://www.insidertrader.com/).
• Earnings Estimates: a consensus of stock analysts.
• Company History: from the company website.
• CorpTech Rankings: rankings by sales and number of employees, nationally and by industry, from CorpTech (http://www.corptech.com).
• Internet Domains: a listing of Web addresses of organizations with this name, from Dot.com Directory (http://www.dotcomdirectory.com/).
• Political Contributions: by recipient, from the Center for Responsive Politics (http://www.opensecrets.org).
• Pollution Reports: for the company's individual facilities, from the Environmental Defense Fund (http://www.scorecard.org/)
• Patents: searches the Patent Bibliographic Database of the US Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html) for patents registered by the company.
• Trademarks: searches the Trademark Database of the US Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov/tmdb/index.html) for the company's active trademarks.
• Websites for Affiliates/Subsidiaries/Divisions/Affiliates
• Job Openings: from the company's website.
• Corporate Culture: "insider company profiles" from Vault.com (http://www.vault.com/).

• Quarterly Financials: basic line items and ratios from the income statement and balance sheet, covering the last five quarters.
• Annual Financials: basic line items and ratios from the income statement and balance sheet, covering the last three fiscal years.
• Delayed SEC Filings: 10-K and other reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.  For those filed in the last 24 hours, see FreeEdgar (http://www.freeedgar.com).
• Current Quote: the latest price of the company's stock and its range for the current or most recent day.
• Chart: a graph of the company's stock price and trading volume for the last year.
• Investor Resources
• Brokerage Research Reports: professional analyses, most of which require payment.  Many of these are available free to WSC on-campus users through General BusinessFile ASAP.
• Earnings Estimates: a consensus of stock analysts.
• Historic Charts from Quote.com (http://www.quote.com/quotecom/): graphs of stock prices and trading volume for the last eight years.
• Intraday Charts from Wall Street City: hourly charts of stock prices and trading volume for the current and previous day.
• Industry Comparison from Wall Street Research Net (http://www.wsrn.com/): a comparison of basic financial data for the company and others in its industry.
• Insider Trades Reports: a list of stock trades by company officers in the last two years from InsiderTrader (http://www.insidertrader.com/).
• QuickSource Report from Wall Street Research Net (http://www.wsrn.com/): basic financial data and a five-year chart of stock prices.
• Quicktake Report from Morningstar (http://www.morningstar.com/): price and volume graphs for periods ranging from one day to ten years.

• Latest Headlines: the current day's headlines of articles mentioning the company, with links to the full text of articles.
• News & Commentary
• Hoover's News: a three-month backfile of articles.
• Hoover's Selected Stories: significant articles and company news releases from the preceding year.

Back to Top

Industry Page

Provides links to information on the company's Primary Industry and Secondary Industry (if any).  Under each:

• Sector
• Description: a brief definition of the sector with links to industries in it.
• Analysis: professional commentary on current status and prospects for the sector.
• News: headlines of news articles on the industry, from the current and previous day, with links to full text.
• Industry: a list of companies in the industry with links to their Company Capsules.
• Hoover's Industry Snapshots: an expert analysis of the industry's status and propspects.
• SIC codes: Standard Industrial Classification codes.

• Click on the Companies & Industries button near the top of the page.
• Click on the dark blue Industries button on the left side.
• Under Industries on the left are the following:
• Industry List: an alphabetical list of industries.  Click on one to see a list of  companies in the industry with links to their Company Capsules.
• Sectors: a list of major industry groups.  Under each:
• Description: a brief definition of the sector with links to industries in it.
• Analysis: professional commentary on current status and prospects for the sector.
• News: headlines of news articles on the industry with links to full text (generally not more than the current and previous day).  Fuller coverage of industry news is found in General BusinessFile ASAP, Business Source Premier, and Predicasts PROMT, from WSC on-campus computers
• Hoover's Industry Snapshots: a list of industries with links to expert analyses of current status and prospects.

The following features of Hoover's Online are less relevant to undergraduate research and are briefly summarized here.  Each refers to a button near the top of the page.

• Money: latest news on investments.  For detailed information on initial public offerings, click on  IPO Central on the left.
• Career Development: news and advice on career planning.  Click on Job Search on the left side to search for open positions.
• News Center: top business news articles for the day, with links on the left to searches of the last three months of Company News, IPO News, Market News, and Industry News.  Fuller news coverage is found in General BusinessFile ASAP, Business Source Premier, and Predicasts PROMT.
• Business Travel: travel-related news and links to information about destinations.
• Store: online ordering of business information.