Business Librarians
Financial ratios show the relationship of one item of a company's financial statement to another item.
Finding General Industry Ratios or Industry Norms
The most useful general ratios are:
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Key Business RatiosKey Business Ratios, from Dun and Bradstreet, help you to assess how a business is doing compared to an industry or a competitor. The 14 key business ratios cover the critical areas of business performance --solvency, efficiency and profitability. They are broken down into median figures, with upper and lower quartiles. Ratios are arranged by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Codes -a four-digit number that classifies business establishments by defining the industries in which they do business.
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BizminerBizMiner offers industry financial analysis benchmarks for over 5,000 lines of business and industry market trends on thousands more. Their market analysis reports are available at the national and local levels down to the zip code. Bizminer is a great resource to use when developing business plans, or for any sort of entrepreneurship initiatives where you need to measure peer performance in an industry.
Other Ratio Sources
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S&P Capital IQ (with access to Aftermarket Research)University students, staff, and faculty must create a user profile. Click "New User?" and input your UMN credentials to gain access. Credentials will then work for both Capital IQ and Capital IQ PRO.
Standard & Poor's Capital IQ is a resource for financial data, analytics, and research. The web-based platform combines deep information on public and private companies, markets, and people worldwide with robust tools for analysis, idea generation, and workflow management. Capital IQ includes access to Aftermarket Research, an extensive collection of embargoed analyst research reports, offering coverage across more than 1,800 research providers including 30 million+ reports (current & historical back to 1995).
Guest users not affiliated with the University, please contact busref@umn.edu 2 business days ahead of your visit to arrange for login access. -
IBIS World (Business)Search industry reports for the United States, Canada, China, and global topics. Each report provides an overall current picture of an industry, including overviews, leading companies, sales information, and authoritative sources for researching hundreds of industries. Includes Business Environmental Profiles that summarize key drivers for industries in the U.S.
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Mergent Online (Business)Database was sunsetted effective June 30, 2025.
Profiles of public corporations around the world that includes summaries, company histories, property, financials, subsidiaries, joint ventures, long term, press release and historical annual reports. -
PitchBookPitchbook is a mediated-access database. Please see Additional Information. Use PitchBook to search thousands of private equity and venture capital deals by hundreds of criteria. Establish benchmarks, find real time data on deals, identify and analyze comparables, and search investor details.
Last Updated: Oct 16, 2025 3:43 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/c.php?g=846743