Business Information

Latest revision by Mary Ann Scott

810-229-6571 x225

Just so you'll know:

· If it's a subscription database, it's available from Brighton District Library's website (http://brightonlibrary.info). Click on "Articles/Databases" near the top of the page. If you are connecting from home you'll be asked for your library card number before you will have access.

Personal Finance

· Money 101 (http://money.cnn.com/pf/101/) An interactive course on CNN's site to lean how to manage money and investments.

· Motley Fool (http://www.fool.com/ ) Entertaining and informative site.

· Learn That Online Courses (http://www.learnthat.com/courses/financial/) - courses with exercise an worksheets on topics such as making ends meet, avoiding an audit, how to shop online.

· Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com ) can look up current stocks and company news. Create a portfolio to track your own stocks.

Business Statistics and Economic Indicators

· Economic Indicators (http://www.economicindicators.gov/) - Regularly released national statistics such as gross domestic product, new residential construction, personal income and much more!

· NAICS Business Patterns (http://censtats.census.gov/cbpnaic/cbpnaic.shtml ) Data on the total number of establishments, employment and payroll for 1998-2001 by zip code, county, state, or metropolitan area.

· Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG) (http://www.semcog.org/ ) - creates statistics such as community profiles, monthly population estimates, employment estimates, number of approved building permits, regional forecasts, nonresidential development, land use, manufactured housing, and traffic counts.

Business News

· General Business File ASAP (http://brightonlibrary.info/articles.html - library database) - Analyze company performance and activity, industry events and trends as well as the latest in management, economics and politics. Provides access to a combination of broker research reports, trade publications, newspapers, journals and company directory listings with full text and images available.

Business Startup

· How to Learn About an Industry or a Specific Company (http://www.virtualpet.com/industry/howto/search.htm) Steps and resources to research an industry or company for starting a company.

· Reference USA - Residential (http://brightonlibrary.info/articles.html ) - Primarily used for creating marketing lists. Contains median income of a particular household, names of the adults in a household, value of a households in the area, and latitude and longitude of a specific place.

· Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center (http://www.misbtdc.org/ ) - Provides quality counseling, training and market research at low-or no-cost. Great resource!

· Michigan Chambers of Commerce (http://www.michamber.com/) - Find Chamber of Commerce in your area.

· Michigan Guide to Starting a Business (http://medc.michigan.org/services/startups/GuideToStarting.pdf)

· Michigan Retailer's Association (http://www.retailers.com/) - "A monthly gauge of key retail activity in Michigan." Also provides services such as merchant credit card services.

· Michigan Service Corps Of Retired Executives (SCORE) (http://www.scoremichigan.org/request_for_counseling.htm) - provides free business counseling.

· Reference USA - Business (http://brightonlibrary.info/articles.html) - Detailed information on more than 14 million U.S. businesses and100 million U.S. residents. Information updated monthly. Can download/print 50 records per search.

Use to find business info such as:

· address & phone

· fax number

· number of employees

· credit rating info

· annual income

· names of key employees

· Edgar info

· SIC and NAICS codes.

Can limit searches by:

· company name

· geography

· ticker symbol

· business size (money or income)

· SIC or NAICS codes

· government offices

· publicly owned vs privately owned

· yellow pages ad size

· headquarters vs branch

· Annual Reports (http://www.annualreports.com ) - find current annual reports of thousands of publicly-traded companies. Annual reports typically include: letter from the chairman (or CEO) to the shareholders; financial highlights; balance sheets; profit and loss statements; new business; year in review; projections; outstanding shares of stock and list of board members.

· Thomas Register (http://www.thomasregister.com/) - main purpose is to find manufacturing companies. Can also be used to find privately held manufacturing companies.

· Ward's Business Directory of U.S. Private and Public Companies - another source for finding information on privately-held companies.

International Trade

· International Trade Administration (http://www.trade.gov ) - Export trade information, assistance, forms and trade statistics

· U.S. Customs and Border Protection (http://cbp.gov/) - NAFTA info.

· World Chambers of Commerce (http://www.worldchambers.com/ ) - Find Chamber of Commerce in other countries. Many have information about starting a business in that country/city.

Investment Info

· BigCharts.com (http://bigcharts.com) - get current and historical stock quotes with interacting charts. Good for finding the original value of a stock on a certain date.

· Morningstar - find reports on mutual funds. Available at the reference desk

· Value Line - (http://brightonlibrary.info/articles.html) - get stock reports and detailed information on particular stocks. Available at the reference desk and online (with a limited number of concurrent logins) .