Update on Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage--some new features have been added

Last week Harry Gee and I attended the CUNY sponsored session on Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage. There are some recent additions to this service, which I've summarized. Please let me know if you have any questions.

• The weekly stock reports are 8 pages long, as compared to two pages in the printed Stock Report volumes.
• The SubIndustry reports are updated monthly and update the Industry Surveys.
• Credit Week is now part of the Industry Reports.
• There is a quarterly update to the Corporate Records.
• Since January, if one clicks on the Industry tab, and looks in the left column, there is a link for IPC Notes. These are Standard & Poor’s Investment Policy Committee Notes for Asia, Europe, the U.S. and Global.
• Also available since January, is another feature that Baruch does not subscribe to, described as “Compustat Light”, the most 8 recent quarters of data available from Compustat for companies. S & P rep Dan Sovocool explained that this version was easier to use than the full Compustat service. He explained to the librarians who were unfamiliar with the product that Compustat offers standardized data elements for research. Howard Bernheim of S & P would be the person to contact if we would want this service. Sovocool thought the price would not be much since we already subscribe to Compustat (through WRDS).
• Baruch does not currently subscribe to the 30,000Global Reports that are available. Excel Analytics is also available to download financials into Excel.
• S&P is phasing out their print products, although Sovocool did not have a complete timetable.
• S&P announced in late February that it will be selling its mutual fund data business to Morningstar Inc. Sovocool said that the sale agreement includes a five year agreement for S&P to license mutual fund data from Morningstar for use in S&P products so NetAdvantage users should not notice any difference in the mutual fund information that is available.
• The Learning Center on the site offers very good information to help increase
information literacy. (I had discovered this on my own a while back.)