Finance Research: Financial Ratios

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.

What industry ratios sources are there?

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.
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. **This resource will be replaced by Mergent Market Atlas in June 2025.
LSEG Refinitiv Workspace
Workspace provides financial and economic data, news, equity reports, and company & industry analysis. Its international in scope and covers both public and private company information. Workspace is most often used for investment analysts’ reports, public company financials & filings, business news, economic indicators, stock prices, and data, and a variety of instruments (bonds, commodities, currencies, ETFs, futures, indexes, options and more). Unique content includes ESG data, performance forecasts & consensus estimates, deals & transactions (M&A, IPOs, venture capital & private equity). Download limit of 150 pages per day, reset daily at midnight local time. New users complete self-registration here - https://my.refinitiv.com/productregistration.html
Workspace is only available to UC San Diego students, faculty, and staff; only for non-commercial, academic research. It replaces ThomsonONE/Investext and Datastream, and now works across several browsers.

Register only once; otherwise login to Workspace using the main link. You may use web or desktop app version (includes the Workspace add-in for Excel), once you are registered.

WRDS Financial Ratios Visualization Tool
This interactive application teaches how to generate and compare financial ratios to one another and to baseline industry measures. Ratios included here fall into the following categories: valuation, profitability, capitalization, financial soundness, solvency, liquidity, and efficiency. Learning materials include an accompanying slide deck and formulae for ratios. Concepts can be transferred to using other WRDS (e.g., Compustat) or ratios data sources (RMA, D&B, Mergent).

Valuation Methods

Business Valuation: Theory & Practice by Marco Fazzini
Call Number: Springer e-book
ISBN: 9783319894935
Publication Date: 2018
This book combines elements from both finance and accounting to help practitioners identify the most suitable method for analysis, showing when and how methods can be applied in different contexts and under specific constraints. It describes how business valuation techniques can be applied to calculate value in case of transactions, litigation, IPOs, and the fair value under an IFRS framework.It describes the Integrated Valuation Approach (IVA) and provides methods based on the International Valuation Standards issued by the International Valuation Standards Council. Valuation standards allow for an alignment of both the methods and their application, providing a common basis for valuers.
Investment valuation and appraisal: theory and practice by Poggensee, Kay, and Jannis Poggensee
Call Number: Springer e-book
ISBN: 9783030624408
Publication Date: 2021

How do I use ratio information?

These books provide background on understanding and using ratio analysis, and how to read financial reports in general.

The full list of books about ratio analysis and financial statements. Below are the "classics" and highlighted materials:

Financial Statement Analysis, 5th ed. by Martin S. Fridson; Fernando Alvarez
Call Number: Wiley e-book
ISBN: 9781119457145
Publication Date: 2022
The updated, real-world guide to interpreting and unpacking GAAP and non-GAAP financial statements. Rather than taking financial statements at face value, you'll learn practical and straightforward analytical techniques for uncovering the reality behind the numbers. This book also teaches readers the tricks that companies use to mislead, so readers can more clearly interpret statements. Learn how to read and understand financial statements prepared according to GAAP and non-GAAP standards. Compare CFROI, EVA, Valens, and other non-GAAP methodologies to determine how accurate companies' reports are. Improve your business decision making, stock valuations, or merger and acquisition strategy.
Analysing Financial Performance by Nic La Rosa
Call Number: Routledge e-book
ISBN: 9781003092575
Publication Date: 2021
This book is an invaluable and practical guide to assist accounting and finance practitioners in measuring and comparing financial performance across firms with different business models, different accounting policies and different scales of operations.
Financial Statement Analysis by Wallace Davidson
Call Number: O'Reilly e-book
ISBN: 1119742323
Publication Date: 2021
This book presents financial statements as a set of dynamic instruments for making financial decisions, and focuses on conditions that cause statements to change and discover how businesses can manage liquidity, debt, and profitability. Plus, explore effect ratios, causal ratios, pro forma analysis, sustainable growth, and much more. Key topics covered include: valuation techniques, effect ratios, DuPont system for analyzing profitability, causal analysis, how to conduct a financial statement analysis, and bankruptcy prediction models.
Financial Ratios by Richard Bull
Call Number: HF5681.R25 B85 (Geisel 6th fl) + ebook
ISBN: 9780080554266
Publication Date: 2009
This book covers the full scope of how to understand how to understand the strengths and shortcomings of financial ratios.
Business Ratios and Formulas, 3rd ed. by Steven M. Bragg
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 1118169964
Publication Date: 2012
Covers nearly 250 operational criteria and offers clear, easy-to-understand explanations. This book is intended as an authoritative resource. It helps the process of measuring corporate performance, by allowing its users to pick and choose the tools they need to best assess their organization's performance. This most recent edition added twenty measurements.
How to Read a Financial Report, 9th ed. by John A.& Tage C.Tracy
Call Number: O'Reilly e-book
ISBN: 9781119606468
Publication Date: 2020
This perennial favorite beginner’s guide to reading and understanding financial reports has been updated. It’s intended for investors, lenders, business leaders, analysts, and managers who want to read, analyze, and interpret financial accounting reports. Designed specifically for non-specialists, this reader-friendly resource covers the fundamentals of financial reporting in jargon-free English.
How to Read Nonprofit Financial Statements by Andrew S. Lang & et al.
Call Number: Wiley e-book
ISBN: 9781118976692
Publication Date: 2017
Geared toward non-profit administrators and interested laypeople, this guide covers basics plus the new FASB changes in financial reporting for all nonprofit organizations, including detailed explanations of what they are and how to implement them correctly.
Handbook of Business and Financial Ratios by Michael Tryan
Call Number: HF5681.R25 T97 (Geisel, 6th fl; print only)
ISBN: 0133758583
Publication Date: 1986
Presents numerous ratios that represent guidelines in assessing, interpreting and planning financial data to meet the objectives of managing a business entity more effectively. It shows how to calculate and use ratios in analyzing past performance results and making industry comparisons.
Key Management Ratios: the 100+ ratios every manager needs to know, 4th rev. ed. by Ciaran Walsh
Call Number: O'Reilly e-book
ISBN: 0273742124
Publication Date: 2010
This book guides readers through the key ratios at the heart of business practice.
Total Management by Ratios: an analytic approach to management control and stock market valuations by Hrishikes Bhattacharyya
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 8178299968
Publication Date: 2007
This is a pioneering book that integrates functional analysis of a business enterprise with stock market valuation. It moves beyond the convention of financial statement analysis to first evaluate every function of management and then integrate this into the total corporate functioning of an enterprise, leading to its valuation in the stock market.
Financial Ratios for Executives by Albert J. Pizzica; Michael Rist; Penhagenco LLC Staff
Call Number: O'Reilly e-book
ISBN: 1484207327
Publication Date: 2014
This book is for those who want to understand how to use financial data to support their initiatives, solve persistent problems, uncover opportunities, bolster company health, and shine in corporate meetings. It makes 100+ financial ratios easy to understand and use effectively. It includes ratios that are commonly used, such as return on investment (ROI), return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), economic value added (EVA), and debt-to-equity ratio, just to name a few. It also includes the most important tools of finance, such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), payback method, and total cost of ownership.
Understanding and Analyzing Financial Statements by Karen P. Schoenebeck Perfect for any accounting course where analyzing financial statements and understanding financial ratios is important.
Call Number: HG4028.B2 S39 (Geisel, 6th fl; print only)
ISBN: 0132391902
Publication Date: 2006

Finance Research: Financial Ratios

Research Help

What industry ratios sources are there?

Valuation Methods

How do I use ratio information?

Video