Show and Fintel – U.S. Industry Metrics

In last week’s post we covered micro-industry research in terms of locating industry codes and creating lists of companies in a specific industry. This post takes industry research one step further by highlighting our newest database for industry ratios and statistics. FINTEL is a database of industry metrics for more than 2,500 industries as classified by NAICS (North American Industry Code System).

For example, a search for Aircraft Manufacturing (NAICS code 336411) will display an Industry Profile giving the industry size (112 companies), industry return on investment, and the loan failure rate. In addition, the profile includes very current industry news stories, some only hours old.

Report options include 1-year and 4-year reports subdivided by size of company (small, medium, large) with the ability to further segment the data by region (state or county), net sales, total assets, employee size, ownership type, and age of firm. The reports include income statements, balance sheets and financial ratios. Reports can be exported as a spreadsheet or PDF. Here is a portion of the financial ratio report for the U.S. Aircraft Manufacturing Industry.

This is only one of the databases available for this type of research. For additional sources for industry ratios, see our FAQ.

Coding Games – Finding Information for U.S. Micro-Industries

Industries are groups of companies in the same line of business. Points of interest in industry research include financial trends, industry profiles, current and projected environment, major companies and their market share.

NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System) is the standard coding system for defining North American industries. NAICS is a powerful indexing tool used by hundreds of government and commercial databases. It groups natural language industry descriptions into one through six digit hierarchical codes that often allow you to retrieve just the data you want for a specific industry configuration.

But NAICS has its limits. Small or very new industries may not have specific codes. Looking for information about the U.S. Dating Services Industry, for example, will turn up the NAICS code:

81299    “Other Personal Care Services”.

The “9” at the end of the code is a tip-off that this category is for “Not Elsewhere Classified” industries within the larger group of personal care services. In this case, it includes a hodge-podge of services. In addition to dating services, it applies to services including “ear piercing”, “tanning salons”, “tattooing” and “shoe shining”.