A comparison of databases: -S&P NetAdvantage -Factiva S533: Online Searching Presented by Eddie Clem

Subject: Business Databases: S&P Net Advantage and Factiva

Scope of Coverage

Scope: S&P NetAdvantage  From IUPUI: On the Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage Home Page you will find feature articles by Standard & Poor's analysts offering independent and unbiased opinion on the stock market, the economy and long and short-term prospects for equities, bonds, funds, and industries.

Scope: Factiva  From IUPUI: Factiva provides general and business news and information. Useful for monitoring and tracking company and industry trends alongside business forecasts, as culled from over 10,000 resources. Daily newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times can be read here.

Searchable Areas (Or, in other words, what topics are searchable within each database!)

Searchable Areas: NetAdvantage  S&P NetAdvantage provides industry surveys and forcasts, stock reports, company descriptions and company financials, and assists with mutual fund research. S&P also provide directories of security dealers in North America and the Register of Corporations, Executives, and Directors.

Searchable Areas: Factiva  Factiva allows you to search by source, search for a company, business and industry subject, or by NAICS industry. You can search by region and language. Factiva also searches for stock quotes (also searchable by ticker symbol), funds, currencies, and common market indices. Historical quotes from the present up to five years are also available.

Searching Methods

Searching Methods: S&P NetAdvantage  S&P categorizes most of their information within the five categories listed above. Advanced searching options are provided within each category.

NetAdvantage: Company Information

NetAdvantage: Industry Information

NetAdvantage: Mutual Funds/ETFs

NetAdvantage: Directories

Searching Methods: Factiva  Unlike the categorization of NetAdvantage, Factiva uses a more advanced searching feature they call “Search Builder” to construct your search statements and desired information return. See next slide for a screenshot. Note that industry is set as the default screen.

Factiva: Search Builder

Similarities & Differences For example, let’s look at company information. I have chosen Deere and Company (of John Deere fame), ticker symbol DE.

Comparisons:  Both NetAdvantage and Factiva provide information on companies and industries, as well as news sources about them. Look at the next two slides, comparing the key points. I’ll highlight key points of each in RED ink.

Comparisons, cont. Factiva Company Profile Unlike NetAdv., Factiva focuses on news. Factiva offers just a broad overview, highlighting stock information. You can create a company report, but it is minimal, with an emphasis on financials.

Comparisons, cont. NetAdvantage Company Profile NetAdv. Has a MUCH more detailed compan y profile than Factiva, with the following sections: Notice news/press releases. See next slide to see how it compares to Factiva.

Comparisons, cont. News Items: NetAdvantage NetAdv. Only provides NYSE reports and press releases from principally Business Wire and other business news sources.

Comparisons, cont. News Items: Factiva—Latest News Provides much more detailed bibliographic information about the news articles. Also categorizes them, making them easily searchable. Note the word count, similar to DIALOG.

Comparisons, cont. News Items: Factiva—Web News Note that the web news has different categories and comes from different sources. In fact, the articles are different, too. Both latest news and web news are very current.

Boolean, Search Strings, etc. Comments and Thoughts

Boolean and Searching  While you can certainly use Boolean and search strings in these databases, because of their content and design, they are primarily menu-driven. You select main categories of information and get chose more and more specific results from menus to retrieve your information.

Summary

 While both databases cover an immense amount of information, and cover a lot of the same information, each specializes in certain areas. NetAdvantage is extremely thorough in industry and company information, including financials. Factiva provides the same information, but to a lesser extent. However, Factiva provides a more complete news coverage.

Summary, cont.  Because of the nature of these business databases, searchers often seek the most current information available. It is also a known fact that the same information from different databases can be quite different, especially financial data. For this reason, it is imperative to check multiple databases and a company’s own website to attempt to verify that you have

Summary, cont.  the most current data possible. It is sometimes easier to use outside sources, such as Yahoo Finance to find ticker symbols and long-range stock information. You could also supplement this information with that which you find in the databases. While this presentation covers only a VERY small portion of the available information contained within

Summary, cont.  NetAdvantage and Factiva, there is so much more upon which I could have elaborated.