Compustat North America

Getting Started with Compustat North America - Research
Insight
Getting Started with Compustat North America - Research Insight.............................. 1

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 2
Before you start .......................................................................................................... 2
Running Research Insight .......................................................................................... 2
Retrieving data ........................................................................................................... 3
Method 1: Data on one company ............................................................................... 4
Exporting Data to Microsoft Excel ............................................................................ 7
Method 2: Collecting data on many companies screening .................................. 9
Retrieving data for the current time period .............................................................. 13
Retrieving historic data in a time-series request ...................................................... 16
Help & Definitions Reference ................................................................................. 19
Appendices:.................................................................................................................. 20
Appendix 1- Another approach to finding data item mnemonics ............................ 20
Appendix 2 - View | Modify Data ........................................................................... 22
Appendix 3 - Classic View ...................................................................................... 23
Appendix 4 - Company Highlights Report & Customisation .................................. 24
Appendix 5 Creating Customised Sets (via Importing Tool) ............................... 27
Compustat North America Workshop Questions .................................................... 30
Compustat North America Workshop Answers ...................................................... 32
Support Resources ................................................................................................... 36
Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013
Introduction
Compustat North America is a database of accounting information about US (as well
as Canadian & International ADR) publicly listed companies. It covers the Income
Statement, Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet as well as many other
supplemental items.
It has fundamental information going back over 30 years covering annual, quarterly
and monthly data items. It also contains historical information on companies that no
longer exist because of merger or bankruptcy, known as inactive or research
companies.
Research Insight is the desktop application by which you can interrogate and analyze
this data. This user guide refers to version 8.7. of the software. 1
Before you start

Check that Research Insight (the application that is used to access Compustat North
America) is installed properly on your computer.
Running Research Insight

Go to the start menu. Then go to All Programs and find Research Insight in the list:
The screenshots used in this manual are retrieved from 8.7.5 on Windows 7 Enterprise Operating
System. However, note that all 8.7 versions are similar with respect to interface functionality and data
content.
Click the Research Insight Program.

The Research Insight application will launch and you should see the welcome box
appear in the centre of the application:
Retrieving data
Research Insight can display data about companies in two modes:
1. It can show financial statements for companies one at a time.
2. It enables you to query specific items (like sales, cost of goods sold etc.) for a
group of companies, known in Research Insight as a set.
Method 1: Data on one company

Click on the Research Assistant icon:
Enter the TICKER or GVKEY (Compustat unique identifier) of the company whose
financial statements you want to retrieve for example GOOGLE. If you do not
know the GVKEY/ticker of a company you can also click the Look Up button and
search by full company name from the Find Text field.
The look-up box appears as below:
Also within the Look Up box, on the left hand side under Select Company Category
you will see a number of sets (lists of companies) that Compustat has created.
Commonly used sets are:
Set
$C
Name
Compustat Active
$R
Compustat Research
$SP_100
S&P 100 Index
$SP_500
S&P 500 Index
$ADR
American Depositary
Receipts
Canadian
$T
Description
All companies that are still being updated in the
database (active).
Companies that are not being updated because they
have ceased to exist due to merger or other reasons
(know as inactive/ research).
The companies/ constituents that make up the S&P
100 index.
The companies/ constituents that make up the S&P
500 index.
US Listings of international companies.
All Canadian companies that are still being updated
in the database (active).
Type the company name in the Find Text: field and then click on Find Next to scroll
through companies whose name matches what you have entered. When you have
found your required company, click Paste (or double-click) on the name and return to
the Research Assistant by closing the lookup box.
You will see that the ticker (GOOG) for GOOGLE has been carried across to the
Research Assistant:
Click Next. Your companys full name should appear in the left plane you should
now be in step 2 of the Research Assistant. Click Next again to proceed to Step 3. To
see pre-built financial statements for a single company click on Open Report and
Next:
You can now select the type of financial report that you want. Click on the + beside
Balance sheets and double-click (or press finish) on Annual Balance Sheet 11
Years.
The following financial statement should appear (part illustrated below):
In the above example you will notice the @CF entries. These are known as data codes
you can find information about these codes by going to Help | Research Insight
Help Topics | Index and search for Data Codes.
To quickly view the same statement for another company, press F9, enter/locate the
new GVKEY and press enter. The data will automatically update for the new
company using the same report format. From the results page, you can open another
report by clicking on the Open Report icon
choice; confirm your GVKEY and press enter.
select the report type of your
Exporting Data to Microsoft Excel

If you click on FILE / SAVE AS on the main menu, and change directory as
required, the report you have produced will be saved as a tab delimited text file. This
can easily be read into Excel.
Open excel click open on the file menu. When the open file box appears change the
File of type box at the bottom to Text File. Now select the file you have saved from
Research Insight (note, the default folder is under My Documents | Research Insight
| CSRPTS) when the import box appears click Finish and format as required
{Delimited | Tab}.
You can also use the S&P menu items that have been added to your Excel menu bar if
available:
If not available, the add-in can be found in the location below:
Select research assistant & the remainder of the process is identical to the steps
previously described. The data populates your Excel sheet.
*TIP: it may be a good idea to unlink the data in the worksheet so that when you
attempt to access the data at times you are not connected to the application you do
not receive errors. Click on the highlighted icon in Excel:
Method 2: Collecting data on many companies screening

Screen the Compustat database universe on any number of quantitative and qualitative
factors, enabling custom report generation based off the resulting list of companies.
Start the Research Assistant using this icon situated on the top left of the button bar:
You should select an initial set to work with. Click on the Change Set button and this
opens up the initial set box:
As you click on Look Up, you will be redirected to the window below:
For companies with active data, highlight $C CS Active and click on Paste;
alternatively you could have simply typed $C in the previous window and clicked on
OK. If you wanted to include active and inactive companies, you would type $C+$R,
or to exclude ADRs from the active set, $C-$ADR. Once your set is chosen, you can
start selecting relevant screening criteria.
You can choose your required criteria by selecting items from the various predefined
tabs. For example (as illustrated below), you may want to screen for companies with a
Market Value > $1.0bn, PE Ratio < 10.0 and Price to Book < 1.0 (set in the
Valuation tab):
Also choose Primary Trading Issue = True and Non-ADR Company = True from
the Population Particulars tab to prevent duplicate issues of companies and non US
securities being included.
The Customize button enables you to create your own tabs (or change the
default display) with both standard items and user-created concepts for easy
access in future uses of the application. Each tab can only display 6 items but
you can change the list shown through the customize button as well as by
(de)selecting different tabs.
Right-click on any item, you gain quick access to its definition.
If you plan to re-use the screening criteria chosen, click on Save As within the
Save screen section.
10
Should you wish to save these companies in a set to re-use later, click on Save
As under the Save Set section in Step 2 of the Research Assistant and name
the set as required. In future you will be able to refer to this set using
customized notation, e.g. $USLargeCap (see below).
Note, if you are unable to save to the local C: drive you may need to navigate
to your personal network area:
Turn to Exercise 1 (Page 27)
11
Now that you have saved the Set, click Next in the Research Assistant, and then select
the Report Assistant option and click Next again:
12
Retrieving data for the current time period

Click Items vs. Companies under the Current Time Period box to run what is
known as a static request (taking latest available data).
Click Next to choose the items you wish to display concerning the companies you
have screened. Navigate around the existing item groups or use the look up facility to
find items youd like to download (again, the customize button is available to create
your own group maximum of 9 item groups can be displayed at any time):
13
To search for items not in any of the pre-selected item groups, use the look up facility
on the top right of the screen above. Search by entering the relevant text string into
the Find Text box or type the data item name as known in the Compustat database.
For example enter DEPRECIATION into the Find Text box; items containing
this text string anywhere within the name will appear, click through the matches until
you find the desired item:
Note: Ensure you have selected All in the select item category box before doing a
search. Within this look up box you can also review the definition of a particular item
by clicking on the Definition button:
Once youve found and confirmed your required item, add it by clicking on paste or
simply double-click it then close. You will see the Depreciation-Amortization item
added into your list of selected items.
Once you have all the items you wish to see displayed, click Finish. You will see
your results in the following screen. The display can be modified as required and
14
converted to an Excel readable format by following the same process as previously

described. The example used in this user guide provides the output below:
Note, to sort the data in an order other than by Company Name (e.g. Net Income),
click on the
button in the toolbar and choose how you wish to sort the date
output then Close:
15
Press F9 or click on the running man

and confirm your chosen set of
companies and initiate the change of sorted order.
If you wish to add or remove any of the columns displayed, use the
icon to
return to the Report Assistant wizard and choose your required item(s). You will need
to re-sort your output if required after adding new items.
Retrieving historic data in a time-series request
To retrieve values over a period of time, or perform a time-series request, choose the
option Items vs. Companies within the Historical Analysis option (you can reach
this screen directly from your previous results/ reports page by clicking on the icon
.
Click next and choose the item(s) you wish to view. Note; it is advisable to choose
only a small number of items if you are looking to view data over a longer period of
time. Use the Remove button to take out existing fields from your selection.
You should now select the time period that your report will cover. For requests where
you want to see a large number of items, it is advisable to only choose a short time
period. If you are looking at just one item, then a longer time period can be used. In
16
our example, you are looking for Sales-Net figures for the same set of companies
over the past 10 years. Note, you can choose a relative time period (-5Y, 0Y etc.) or
Absolute (Y04, Y09) representing fiscal years or calendar years. Remember, if using
latest year, you may not have the complete data as not all companies will reported at
the time Compustat was updated; this shall be illustrated with a @NA value.
Choosing a relative time period of 0Y will always bring back the latest data.
17
Again, you can sort this data by using the Formula option and right-click on any
column. You can also modify field headers as required for presentation purposes
(although this may be more appropriate to perform in Excel).
You can click Save As to save the report as a text file. See previous notes on
exporting the file data into excel.
18
Help & Definitions Reference

The full list of data items is available in the Compustat North America Data and
Reference found within Help | Data and Reference
Some example data items are as follows:
Item
Category
Code
Sales (Net)
Company Name
EPS Basic Excl. Extra. Items
Income-Stat Ann
Company specific
Income-Stat Ann
SALE
CONM
EPSPX
Assets - Total
Balance Sheet - Annual
AT
Liabilities - Total
R&D expense
Common Equity - Total

Income-Stat Supp
LT
XRD
CEQ
Long Term Debt - Total
DLTT
Research Insight contains a help system that contains all of the products
documentation. Some of the topics that may prove useful are:
Screening
Sets
Formulas
Reports
How to build a list of company (a set) from a set of criteria

How to manipulate lists of companies
How to create your own formulas
Viewing and Creating Reports
For a list of data items, you can find the full description of each one by clicking on
, then click on Items. Choose the item you wish to explore, and click
consequently on Definition.
19
Appendices:
Appendix 1- Another approach to finding data item mnemonics
By using Research Insight to access fundamental data for one company, you can then
see what codes and data types the application uses to create a report and then use the
codes in your own data gathering exercises (see Appendix 4 for customization of
reports).
(A) Using the research assistant wizard open a pre-defined report for a company,
e.g. GOOGLE (remember, use the Ticker GOOG)
(B) Select Annual Income Statement 11 Years.
When you receive the results, click on the formula button as illustrated:
20
This shows the formulas rather than the numbers as shown in the screenshot below.
You can now see the structure of the Income statement and the codes used for Sales
(SALE), Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), Depreciation & Amortization (DP), etc.
Also you can see how Research Insight associates different time periods, e.g.
COGS[-3]: COGS value 3 years prior or COGS[Y07] would be COGS for FY2007.
You can do the same thing for the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement and all
other pre-built templates in the Reports folder.
21
Appendix 2 - View | Modify Data

A useful tool to check a single item of data for a single company over the whole
period of time the database covers.
To access, click on Databases | View/Modify Data:
As you click on View, you will see the data as shown below:
22
Appendix 3 - Classic View

This section is rather for expert users who are more familiar with the Research
Insight expression language/mnemonic set and require a quick way of screening for a
population. To access, click on File | Classic View:
Example: Lets say we want to screen on active companies ($C) with a 1st stage
criteria of AT > 1000 ($1bn) and a 2nd stage criteria of New York City of
incorporation. Enter each criteria field into the space provided, click on the
enter it into the grid. Once complete click on the running man (or press F9).
to
You will see the number of companies that pass 140 out of the initial North
American (Active) set of 2,632 that have Total Assets of over $1bn. Continue to enter
further criteria until your research is complete, e.g.:
To refresh the results for each line item, use Screen | Refresh or CTRL + F9 or
simply click on
on this page. To see the companies passing on any particular
line, you need to navigate to the respective row, (e.g. Row 6 above) and select Screen
| View Results. By click on the save icon you can save the above criteria to re-use in
the future.
By naming the final results set as in the example above, Set_NY, you will be able
to use these companies as a set in future analysis after saving the screen. Save by
right-clicking on Set_NY and click on Save Passed Set under the standard folder
CSSETS. The resultant set can be accessed in the Research Assistant and selecting
Open Set.
23
Appendix 4 - Company Highlights Report & Customisation

A useful report to access is the Company Highlights report this gives you an
overview of a company as of the latest database update. Click on the Open Report
icon and click on Company Highlights. Alternatively, click on the
point in the application.
icon at any
When the report loads up, choose the GVKEYs or Tickers as required to populate the
data fields, note you can always enter multiple tickers in the Companies field by
separating the identifier with a comma:
24
Research Insight allows you to customize existing reports that you may wish to add
extra item(s) into.
Click on Formula on the left hand side of the report, and then the
icon to add a
text. For example, you would like to include the Company Website URL at the top of
the report. Click into the display where you want the label to appear, and type the
description as required in the text field, clicking the tick to confirm.
Next click the
icon. This field needs to pick up the Compustat item related to
Website address. In this case this is WEBURL (again use the lookup tool to search if
you cannot remember the mnemonic):
Draw the area where you want the Website label to appear, re-align accordingly, and
type the item WEBURL into the field, clicking on the tick to confirm:
25
Click F9 to re-run your report, confirming the ticker. You will see your new item
appear in the report:
26
Appendix 5 Creating Customised Sets (via Importing Tool)

Research Insight enables the importing of a custom set of companies from an Excel
spreadsheet. There are three steps involved: creating your spreadsheet file in the
correct layout, saving your spreadsheet file in the correct file format and importing the
set from your spreadsheet file.
Creating the Spreadsheet File:
In cell A1 of your spreadsheet, enter a header retrieval key; valid keys are TIC,
CUSIP or GVKEY. In cell A2 and all subsequent fields below, fill in your list of
retrieval keys. For example see below:
If you have identifiers of another type, e.g. ISIN, SEDOL please liaise with the client
support team at ClientSupport@StandardandPoors.com who will be able to map these
codes to the GVKEY or other available identifier to assist you with creating your
customized sets.
In order for Research Insight to read your import file, it must be saved as a .CSV file
rather than an .XLS or .XLSX. Once saved, make sure you close the .CSV file.
From Research Insight, select File | Import and navigate to the folder where you
saved the .CSV file. Once you have located it remember to click on the Set option
within the dialog box before attempting the import:
27
Research Insight will ask you to confirm if the file is in .CSV format presenting
subsequently the following dialog boxes:
Select the type of set that you want to import; note if your spreadsheet contains a
company ticker, you can still import the company as a business segment set, a
geographic segment set, or an issue set. The retrieval keys in the spreadsheet do not
have to match the set type you choose.
Click OK. The request will process and Research Insight will tell you when the
operation is complete. If it has been successful you will see the output presented in the
application as below:
28
To save the resulting data as your new set, from the File menu, select Save. From here
you can choose the name you wish to call the set and provide a description, if you like
under File Options. To use this set in the application at a future date from the
Research Assistant, click on the change set option below:
Then click on look Up and change the set category to Saved. You will see your saved
set in the list:
Alternatively, simply type in $NY_Tickers to recall the set.
29
Compustat North America Workshop Questions

For all of the questions below, use a set that includes only active companies in the
North American database, while excluding $ADR and $T {Canadian} companies
[$C - $ADR - $T].
1. Use the Research Assistant to determine how many companies:
Hint use the research assistant screening tool, you may need to customize the
groups/items in order to see the relevant data type that will calculate this. Look for
the Sales 1 Yr CAGR and Assets 1 Yr CAGR items within the Growth category.
A. Increased their SALES by over 100% in their last Financial Year
compared to the previous year? ____________
B. Increased their TOTAL ASSETS by over 100% in their last
Financial Year compared to the previous year? __________
C. Increased both sales & total assets by over 100% in their last
Financial Year compared to the previous year? __________
2. For the resulting companies from Question 1C, using the report assistant,
download the GVKEY & Total Current Assets items (Total Assets can be
found in the Bal Sheet - Ann group) for the current time period (Items vs.
Companies). From the results screen, which company has the highest Total
Current Assets and what is the value? Take note of the GVKEY for this
company. _____________________________________
3. Again, for the same set of companies, retrieve the item Total Assets for the
absolute period Y12 to Y02 using the Report Assistant. Sort the resulting data
so that the Company with highest Total Assets for Y10 is top, who is that
company? _________________________
30
4.
A. Create a new screen to search for companies that have doubled sales
and assets over the last year and who have a Market Value of over
$500m. How many companies pass this screen?
__________________
B. Using the Report Assistant, determine which company from this set
of companies has enjoyed the best and worst share price
performance over the last month and what are the values?
Hint search for the item 1 Month Price Change in the Market &
Returns group. You may also wish to retrieve the Ticker symbol in
the same report for Question C.
BEST:__________________________________________________
WORST:_________________________________________________
C. For the company with the best performance, open the Company
Highlights report and identify the companys latest Price to Book
figure, Market Value & the Core EPS - Basic.
P/B: _________________________
Market Value: ______________________________
Return on Assets ROA):_______________________________
5. Again for the same company, customize the Company Highlights report to
display their Compustat GVKEY and the Company WEBURL. (Use the
Formula view to customize)
31
Compustat North America Workshop Answers

Compustat Database North America @
1A: 240 companies
1B: 333 companies
32
1C: 77 companies
2: Express Scripts Holding Co.:

GVKEY: 025356
ACT: $10,756.900
3: Energy Transfer Equity LP:
GVKEY: 165649
AT[Y10]: $17,378.730
4A:
33
4B:
4C:
34
5:
Answers are correct as per the Compustat NA database 18TH of April 2013.
35
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Getting Started with Compustat North America - Research

Getting Started with Compustat North America - Research Insight.............................. 1

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Before you start

Running Research Insight

Click the Research Insight Program.

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Method 1: Data on one company

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

The look-up box appears as below:

S&P 100 Index

S&P 500 Index

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

The following financial statement should appear (part illustrated below):

select the report type of your

Exporting Data to Microsoft Excel

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

If not available, the add-in can be found in the location below:

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Method 2: Collecting data on many companies screening

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Turn to Exercise 1 (Page 27)

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Retrieving data for the current time period

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

converted to an Excel readable format by following the same process as previously

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Press F9 or click on the running man

Turn to Exercise 2 (Page 27)

Retrieving historic data in a time-series request

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Turn to Exercise 3 (Page 27)

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Help & Definitions Reference

Balance Sheet - Annual

Balance Sheet - Annual

Long Term Debt - Total

Balance Sheet - Annual

How to build a list of company (a set) from a set of criteria

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Appendix 2 - View | Modify Data

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Appendix 3 - Classic View

Appendix 4 - Company Highlights Report & Customisation

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Appendix 5 Creating Customised Sets (via Importing Tool)

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Alternatively, simply type in $NY_Tickers to recall the set.

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Compustat North America Workshop Questions

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Copyright S&P Capital IQ 2013

Compustat North America Workshop Answers

1A: 240 companies

1B: 333 companies