Yablon Electronic Classroom Coming to Lippincott

Construction of an electronic classroom in Lippincott Library’s staff work space (located behind the Reference Desk) will begin in mid May. The room is made possible by a generous gift from Wharton Alumnae Jill Yablon. Scheduled for completion by September 2013, the classroom will have 16 computer stations with dual monitors, plus a teaching station. It will be used to provide hands-on instruction for Bloomberg, S&P Capital IQ, and other financial databases. The room will be available to the Penn Community when it is not being used for instruction.

The movers already got to work on Thursday by moving all of the furniture out of the staff area.

We will keep you updated on the progress throughout the summer. Please excuse the noise and dust while construction is taking place!

Increase Your Market Share IQ

The cartoon character Dogbert gives this advice to the Boss:

“It’s easy to create a strategy – Write down everything you do preceded by the phrase Increase our Market Share by.”

Creating strategy a la Dogbert is easy. Finding market share data can be tough.

Market share is the percentage of a market, usually defined in units or in revenue, accounted for by a company, a brand, a product, a commodity, or an institution.  The market can be defined geographically, as broadly as the entire world or as narrowly as a zip code. Market share figures are usually calculated for the year, but some industries require more frequent updates. For example, the publication MusicWeek gives weekly market shares by corporate group for artists’ singles and albums. In addition, we may want historical time series or a projection of market share data. The number of potential requests for specific combinations of products, companies, geography and time is almost endless.

Here are some sources for market share data.

Bloomberg

Bloomberg’s industry surveys module is a good source for market share data for more than one hundred industry groups. The screen below shows market share data for North American Passenger Airlines. Use the command BI <GO> to access Bloomberg Industries. Select an industry and then click on “Market Share” from the left-hand menu. Bloomberg is available at the Lippincott Library and Huntsman Hall.

Note that passenger airlines have their own unique market share metric “Revenue Passenger Kilometers”

Market Share Reporter

It’s Not Rocket Science: Part II – Creating a Monitor or Watch List

Our previous post on Launchpad went over the basic structure of the tool. For those just joining, Bloomberg Launchpad BLP <GO> is a tool used to personalize your Bloomberg desktop. We opened up Part I by displaying an example Launchpad View, which is made up of several parts including a monitor, components, view, and groups.  In this post we cover how to set up a Monitor, which is a watch list of securities. Once you have your watch list, you can decide which components you would like to display, but that’s for next time.

Start to create a View by setting up a Monitor or selecting a Security. In either case you will then add other Components. In this example we will build a View by adding a Monitor. In Part III we will add additional Components to expand our View.

Creating a Monitor

There are several ways to set up a Monitor.

Type Monitor into the keyword search box in the Launchpad toolkit and click on the link.   A blank monitor screen will appear. Or, in Launchpad, click on Tools, and then click on the Monitor Manager.  Next, click on Create New.

This brings you to a sample Monitor so you are able to see how a completed Monitor will look. Next, click on Launch Monitor which will retrieve the same blank monitor as above.

Third, click on Browse in the Launchpad Toolkit.  You will be brought to a list of Components.  Select Monitor. Click on the link and a sample screen will appear.  Click on Launch Monitor to get the same blank Monitor screen.

Just in Time for April 15: Federal Tax Research

Since 1913, CCH has been providing information on tax, accounting, and auditing. Intelliconnect (formerly CCH Internet Tax Research Network) is a primary resource for finding information about the tax code, regulations, case law, and more. The amount of content available is overwhelming, which can make searching for specific tax information difficult. In this post, we show you the mechanics of searching Intelliconnect and how to quickly and easily parse out federal tax information.

You can search across the entire CCH Library using the search box or within specific publications for a more targeted search. A good starting point for federal tax information is in Tax Research Consultant and Standard Federal Tax Reporter. Both publications are written by experts at CCH. The explanations use plain language to make the tax code easier to understand while also providing links to the primary sources.

• Tax Research Consultant – explanations include practical examples, sample calculations, comments and more. Useful for researching how to solve common tax problems. Content is arranged topically.

• Standard Federal Income Tax Reporter is arranged to coincide with the federal income tax code. Includes links to full-text IRS documents (e.g. regulations, cases, etc.), where applicable.

Let’s try a sample search. Let’s say you are searching for hobby loss deductions. Begin by expanding Federal Tax => Federal Tax Editorial Content and selecting Tax Research Consultant and Standard Federal Tax Reporter. Once these two publications are selected, search for the terms hobby loss deduction in the search box. The drop-down box will automatically change to search within the “Selected Content.” This means you will only be searching within those two publications, rather than the entire CCH library.

Private Company Research Part II: Corporate Affiliations

Continuing with our search for private company information, in this post we highlight another database that you can use to find private company information. Take a look at our previous post on researching private companies for a good place to find private company financials.

Corporate Affiliations shows the corporate structure of more than 1 million public and private companies worldwide, with subsidiary listings and corporate linkage. Some important features of this database are:

 

Corporate Hierarchy

Corporate hierarchy shows the relationships among parents and subsidiaries. To find this information, search by company name. After selecting the company of interest, click on “Hierarchy” found in the left-hand menu. The screen below shows part of the corporate hierarchy of Bain Capital.

Company Executives

Use this database to find detailed lists of executives, their titles and biographies. For example, you can search and retrieve executives worldwide who are Wharton graduates (there are more than 1,200). The screen below is a partial list of Wharton graduates who are officers in Chinese companies.

In the MOOC: Changing the way Universities do Business

MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) have the potential to alter the education delivery system.  These open-learning platforms are rapidly changing the higher education landscape, especially with the support and growing participation from academic institutions. The courses offered through MOOCs are free and available to anyone with an Internet connection. The University of Pennsylvania is currently listing 20 courses on the Coursera platform. These include business related courses like Principles of Microeconomics, as well as courses in design, literature, and healthcare, to name a few.

Three open learning platforms known for their high-quality content are:

Coursera describes itself as a “social entrepreneurship” company and is currently partnering with 62 universities to provide free, online college-level courses. Their vision is to make education more accessible beyond the traditional classroom. Coursera offers an extensive course catalog that is continually growing. Courses are grouped into categories like Business & Management, Chemistry, Law, and Social Sciences. Course offerings in five different languages are also represented. Take a look here to see if your favorite Penn professors are offering any upcoming courses.

MIT OpenCourseWare lists course materials from 2,150 MIT classes and is touting 125 million visitors so far. This open learning platform differs from Coursera because the content is provided exclusively by MIT, rather than a consortium of universities.

It’s not Rocket Science. Bloomberg Launchpad Part One: Basics

Bloomberg Launchpad BLP <GO> is a tool used to personalize your Bloomberg desktop.  A Launchpad View will look something like this, depending on which Components you select.

Use this tool to help you keep up on all of the securities and industries you are currently tracking. The Launchpad can contain a watch list of securities, news, analysis or whatever else you want displayed.  You can save this customized View (create as many as you need) and use it over and over.  You can also change a View whenever you want.  Just be sure to save your changes. And, you can select which Launchpad View displays when you log into Bloomberg.

First, you need to create your own Bloomberg account on any of the Lippincott Library Bloomberg terminals.  Instructions are available in our Business FAQ and at the Bloomberg terminals.  Once logged in, type BLP <GO> and you are ready to starting building.  This is what the Launchpad toolbar looks like:

In order to build a Launchpad View you will need to create:

Monitor: A watch list of securities.

Components: Boxes displaying different functions related to the Monitor or a security.

A Little Privacy, Please: Finding Private Company Information

The shares of a private company are held by one or a few individuals, and are not traded publicly. In contrast, anyone can buy the shares of a public company. Private companies greatly outnumber public companies. More than 99% of the world’s companies are private.

The Penn Libraries subscribe to several databases with extensive information on private companies. The databases all provide, at some level of detail, company and business descriptions, industry classifications, and executive names. They differ in the range of companies, and executives offered, as well as the financial detail they give. All have distinctive features of value. Over the next few weeks, we will describe several databases that are useful for private company research.

ORBIS

Providing access to more than 100 million company records worldwide, ORBIS is the master index to the Bureau Van Dijk (BVD) suite of databases. The suite draws data from three types of files.

• Subject Related Files: Zephyr for M&A deals, Bankscope, ISIS for Insurance
• Country Specific Files:  including databases such as FAME for the U.K., QIN for China, and ICARUS for Canada and the U.S.
• International Files: OSIRIS, for 70,000 listed companies worldwide

Private Companies with Financial Statements

Most private companies in the U.S. are not required to make their financial statements public.

Bloomberg Highlights: Round 3

Bloomberg  Highlights is back again to show off more of what Bloomberg can do. For more highlights, take a look at Round 1 and Round 2.

Bloomberg Social Media Alert

Bloomberg measures the volume of postings about companies from StockTwits, Twitter, Yahoo Finance message boards, and other social media sites. When companies have an unusually large number of messages, Bloomberg lists them as “Velocity Alerts”. Such alerts may be early warning signs of significant company events.

Type NH NGV and hit the green <GO> key. Search by company ticker to find any alerts posted.

Here is a graph of the velocity alerts of Ford Motor Company showing an unusual pattern of social media alerts.

Private Company Information

Although Bloomberg is primarily a source of financial information about public companies, it does list information about several hundred private companies. These are private companies that have public debt. To see if a company is covered by Bloomberg, type the name of the company into the command line and hit the yellow <Equity> key.

For example, typing Cargill into the command line will bring up a four page company description with links to the company’s financial data.

BOMA Booster: Analyzing Income and Expenses for Commercial Properties

The industry benchmark for 75+ years, BOMA is a compilation of income and expense data for commercial properties across North America compiled by the Building Owners and Managers Association International.

Create Your Own Reports  

The Experience Exchange Reports (EER) are quite specific and include an Occupancy Survey as well as an Income/Expense Report. In addition to overall rental income and operating expenses, the reports include details such as expenses for Cleaning (e.g. window washing), Repair & Maintenance (e.g. HVAC), Utilities, Security, Administration, and Parking.

BOMA allows screening on more than a dozen variables. The basic screen above allows selection by: