Finance Research: Guide

This guide gathers in one place the links to company financial datasets, industry ratios, background information, news on finance topics and academic research articles for corporate finance and financial markets.

About this guide

Welcome!

This guide will walk you through the most useful UC San Diego resources for finance-related research. Guide content is arranged by tasks shown in the left nav bar.

NEW LOOK - this layout is new and easier-to-navigate. If you are a returning user, you will be able to find the same trusted contents with tabs oriented on the side now. There are updated listings for e-books, audiobooks, interwoven throughout.

Guides and Handouts

Most recent guides:

2024 MQF Orientation
This slide deck introduces the Library resources for the Master of Finance program students (09/21/23).

2024 Finance Orientation Worksheet
After our session on 9/19 try out these seven activities to set yourself up for success using the resources.

Other useful guides:

Rady Graduate Students' Intro to Library Resources
Use this guide if you want a quick start to the most popular links.
Getting Started Guides
This is the online version of the handouts I brought to orientation. They are broader introductions to resources that highlight specific, broad disciplinary resources:
- Arts and Humanities
- Biological, Health and Marine Sciences
- Physical Sciences and Engineering
- Social Sciences.

May 2023 UC San Diego Student Foundation Guide
Resource guide customized for undergrads volunteering for the Foundation.

Quick Links

Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) WRDS provides access to selected datasets in the fields of finance, accounting, banking, economics, management, marketing and public policy. ACCESS: UC San Diego faculty, staff and students first must sign up for a WRDS account by using the Register link on the landing page. LIMITATIONS: Masters & Undergraduate students do not have access during summer or quarter breaks. UC San Diego affiliates without AD network accounts are ineligible for WRDS accounts (most Extension students are in this category). In those cases, Mergent Online and Global Financial Database are your recommended alternatives.
Currently includes (as of 9/14/2021):
Bank Regulatory Database
Blockholders Database
CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange)
S&P Compustat Bank
Compustat Bank - daily updates
S&P Compustat Global
Compustat Global - daily updates
Compustat Legacy - Global
S&P Compustat North America - annual update (current + historical data)
Compustat North America - daily updates (current + historical data)
Compustat Legacy - North America
S&P Compustat North America - monthly update (current + historical data)
S&P Compustat Historical Segments
Compustat Historical Segments - daily updates
Contributed Data - Characteristic Returns
Contributed Data
Contributed Database: Intangible Value
KPSS Technological Innovation
Contributed Database: LIVA
CRSP/Compustat Merged (Annual)
CRSP Indexes (Annual)
CRSP Stock (Annual)
CRSP Treasuries (Annual)
CRSP Ziman Real Estates (Annual)
CRSP Index History Intraday (Quarterly)
Dow Jones Averages & Total Return Indexes
Direct Marketing Educational Foundation
SEC Disclosure of Order Execution Statistics
Fama-French portfolios and factors
Federal Judicial Center Linking
Federal Judicial Center Litigation
Federal Reserve Board Foreign Exchange Rates, Interest Rates, and State Composite Indexes
Macro Finance Society
MSRB - Municipal Securities Transaction Data
OTC Markets End-of-Day Pricing
Philadelphia Stock Exchange Currency Options and Implied Volatility
Publicly Available Data
The Penn World Tables Database
Research Quotient (provided to all academics with a Compustat subscription)
NYSE Trades & Quotes 1993
NYSE Trades & Quotes 1994
NYSE Trades & Quotes 1995
NYSE Trades & Quotes 1996
NYSE Trades & Quotes 2014
NYSE Trades & Quotes - Exists for FK contraint
NYSE Trades and Quotes - for website use
NYSE Millisecond Trades & Quotes 2014
NYSE Millisecond Trades & Quotes 2015
NYSE Millisecond Trades & Quotes 2016
NYSE Millisecond Trades & Quotes 2017
NYSE Short Sales 2005
NYSE Short Sales 2006
NYSE Short Sales 2007
Total q by Luke Taylor
FINRA TRACE Enhanced
FINRA TRACE corporate bond trades
WRDS Research Applications
WRDS Backtest Basic
WRDS Beta Suite
WRDS Efficient Frontier
WRDS EU Short Sales
Event Study Intl using Compustat
Event Study Intraday
Event Study Long Run
Event Study US
WRDS Financial Ratios (base)
WRDS Financial Ratios with CCM
Linking Suite: Bond - CRSP
Linking Suite: TAQ Monthly - CRSP
Linking Suite: TAQ Daily - CRSP
Linking Suite: Supply Chain
WRDS Patent Database
WRDS SAS Visual Analytics
WRDS Company Subsidiaries
WRDS World Indices
MIDAS
Accounting, Tax, & Banking Collection This ProQuest database contains highly-ranked global and scholarly journals, current news and trade journals on topics in accounting, banking and taxation. It's useful for articles on the trends and history influencing important accounting and tax issues of the day.
Business Source Complete Dates of coverage vary, some journals back to early 20th century. Abstracts and full text in virtually all subject areas related to Business, Management and Finance. Journal and magazine articles; also books, industry reports, company profiles, SWOT analysis, much more
Mergent Online Provides detailed information about U.S. and International public companies. Content includes: links to SEC EDGAR filings, current and archived company profiles and annual reports, historical financial and stock price data, financial ratios, equity research reports, and industry reports.
Mergent Archives Search here for historical annual reports (starting from 1925), business ratios (starting from 1979) and the company and industry report publications known as the Moody's/Mergent's manuals (starting from 1909, including the industrial, public utilities, transportation, banking, OTC, banking & finance, and international publications and statistical data). For current company information, use Mergent Online, and for current ratios, use Key Business Ratios.
Global Financial Database Financial and economic data covering over 150 countries and over 6,500 historical and current data series. Bonds, T-bills, unemployment, GDP, commodity prices, exchange rates, and more, some dating back to 1900. Note: To access, use the “Login Anonymously” option and choose GFDatabase in the left nav bar.
CEIC Data CEIC Data contains economic, industrial and financial time-series data. Access limited to 5 simultaneous users. Try again later if refused. Four databases are included in this package: • China Premium Databases The China Premium Database offers over 415,000 time-series records on macroeconomic, sector, industry and regional data dating back to 1949. The China Premium Database is available in both English and Chinese. • Brazil Premium Databases The Brazil Premium Database covers 13 macroeconomic and 13 industry growth sectors with unmatched coverage of the energy, biofuel, and automobile sectors. Regional data are also available for Brazil's 5 regions, all 27 states, and 6000 municipalities. • Global Database CEIC Data’s Global Database provides access to granular macroeconomic data covering both developed and emerging markets covering over 200 economies and is ideal for business students, professors and lecturers for macroeconomic research projects and course assignments. • Daily Database
Key Business Ratios This online version of Dun & Bradstreet's Industry Norms and Key Business Ratios includes current benchmarking data for U.S. public and private businesses using parameters of solvency, profitability and efficiency for 800 lines of business. Features include importing and exporting of data. For historical ratios (older than current five years), use the Mergent Archives.

Read today's New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Washington Post via Factiva's US Newsstand Feature
Barron's
Barron’s is a long-standing business news publication focused on financial markets and investing. Content is international in scope, through a "Wall Street" lens. This link searches across all Barron’s content via our Factiva platform, covering the print editions (1987-present) plus the Barron’s Online content (starts 2008), blogs and podcasts (starts 2022). Alternative access points:
- Newsstand format provides the four latest editions arranged section-by-section, and browseable like the original newspaper. From the main Barron’s link, navigate to Home on Factiva’s menu, and scroll to the US Newsstand section. Barron’s is on the fourth dot of the carousel.
- Individual Factiva articles offer translate-on-demand into multiple languages, or text-to-audio for English content.
- There are direct links to Barron’s China (simplified) and Barron’s China (traditional) editions (starts 2021).
- Barron’s Archive is available on ProQuest platform (1921-2010).
- Online access also occurs via ProQuest’s Accounting, Tax and Banking Collection (1988-present). This version allows email alerts for new issues or topics.
- Current print editions are in Geisel Library’s Current Journals area, call number HG1 B3.
The Economist
Offers authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science and technology.
FT.com (Financial Times)
Covers current issues. To start your access, register using your current UC San Diego email at https://ft.com/UCSD. To learn more about all the FT.com features and apps, go to our background page.
NYTimes.com
Go here to get access to the campus subscription to New York Times.
WSJ.com
The Wall Street Journal now available from their website for all UCSD students and employees with single sign-on authentication.
UC Library Search What to know where to find something? Is a link you're looking for not on the list below? This link is they place to search across all of our resources in one swoop. Use Advanced Search > Catalog search screen to find out if we have a particular item. Want to just see what's "out there"?: Use the landing page to search a topic across all sources, not just ours. Covers UC holding and beyond, print and electronic.