Company Histories

• Start your company history research with the International Directory of Company Histories and the Moody's Manuals. If you just need a list of important corporate milestones, look at Notable Corporate Chronologies. These are the primary sources for company histories.
• If these resources don't include your company or don't provide enough information, use the other resources listed to obtain historical information which can be used to write your own company history.
• Read a company's annual report or visit their web site to see if a history is included. (Note that a history from these sources could be biased.)
• Search for books that are corporate histories. Also, other books about a company often include historical background. Do a "search everything"or a subject search in WEBCAT to find any books in the Salmon Library which cover your company.
• If you are affiliated with the University of Alabama in Huntsville, you may want to use Books In Print or WorldCat to identify other books which may then be available through Interlibrary Loan.
• Search for articles in business and trade magazines or journals which are corporate histories. Sometimes major news event articles will provide a brief company history.

Business and Company Resource Center: Contains company profiles, histories, and chronologies.
AVAILABILITY: NETWORKED DATABASE.

 

International Directory of Company Histories: Provides extensive histories on over 3,000 companies. Most companies included have a minimum of $100 million in annual sales and are leading influences in their industries or geographical locations. Most are public companies, but some private and non-profit corporations are included. Use the cumulative index in the latest volume available to see if your company is profiled or mentioned anywhere in the series.
AVAILABILITY: Reference. (HD2721 I63)
Moody's Manuals: This multi-volume set includes a brief history in each entry. Some histories, however, are extremely brief. Public companies only.
AVAILABILITY: Reference.
FIS Online (UAH Only) contains selected manuals.

Moody's Manuals: Historical Issues of the Moody's Manuals are available back to 1990. These volumes are an excellent resource for historical facts and figures.
AVAILABILITY: Stacks, N2.

 

Notable Corporate Chronologies: A collection of chronologies for over 1,500 corporations. Each timeline lists and briefly describes 30 or more key dates that mark major events in a corporation's life story. Included are dates for founding, major product introductions, tenures of pivotal executives, major scandals, mergers and acquisitions, and major stock offerings.
AVAILABILITY: Reference (HG4009 .N68)

 

F & S Index: An index to articles in many business and trade magazines. The print version of this index is arranged such that you can look up a company's name and obtain a list of all reported events and activities of that company for a given year. Issues back to 1978 are available.
AVAILABILITY: Reference (HF5001 .P74)

Wall Street Journal Index: An index to articles in The Wall Street Journal. This index is arranged such that you can look up a company's name and obtain a list of all reported events and activities of that company for a given year. Issues back to 1960 are available.
AVAILABILITY: Reference - (HG1 .W258)

NETWORKED DATABASE: ABI Inform (campus only) Limit Publication to "Wall Street Journal" and perform a keyword search. (1990-)

 

Historical Stock Quotes:

 

Common Stock Newspaper Abbreviations & Trading Symbols: Gives Market Listing, Newspaper Abbreviation and Trading Symbol for common stocks, as of 1989. Useful in researching companies now non-existent.
AVAILABILITY: Reference (HG 4636 .J37 1989)
Financial Stock Guide Service, 1985: A directory of obsolete securities as of 1985. Gives date and details. Useful in researching companies now non-existent.
AVAILABILITY: Reference (HG 4961 .D56)
IQC.com: Historical stock market quotes are available back to 1968. Be aware that historical quotes from www.iqc.com are adjusted (for stock splits, etc).
AVAILABILITY: http://www.iqc.com/quote
BigCharts: Over 50,000 Symbols Covered ; All NYSE,NASDAQ, OTC, AMEX, TSE, VSE, MSE, ASE, WSE Stocks ; All NASDAQ Quoted Mutual Funds; All Major Financial Indexes ; End-of-day Data Provided by Interactive Data Corp. The database of market information that BigCharts uses dates back to January 2nd, 1985. At this time, BigCharts has no data previous to that date. Canadian symbols are available on both BigCharts and BigCharts Canada. To chart Canadian symbols on BigCharts you mustprefix all symbols with "CA:". >Example: To chart Telus Corporation on BigCharts you can enter "CA:T">The historical quotes tool will lookup a security's exact closing price for you. Simply type in its symbol and a historical date. This is a great tax and estate planning tool useful for individual investors, attorneys, accountants and stock brokers to find the historical cost basis for stock and mutual fund holdings.
AVAILABILITY: http://www.bigcharts.com/ or http://control.bigcharts.com/hquote/hquote.asp
Stocktools: Covers all American and Canadian Exchanges.
AVAILABILITY: http://www.stocktools.com/

 Investools: Charts back to 1994.
AVAILABILITY: http://www.investools.com/cgi-bin/charts.pl

 MSN-Investor: Gives quotes back to at least 1995 but you must download Microsoft Investor software in order to view charts. Investor provides free delayed quotes on thousands of non-U.S. securities. Since equity interests in foreign companies are often traded on a domestic (U.S.) exchange as well as a foreign exchange, you should indicate the correct country code if you want to get a quote from the foreign exchange. When you use the country code prefix, security prices are calculated and displayed in the foreign currency.
AVAILABILITY: http://investor.msn.com/home.asp?Welcome=true

 Dow Jones Averages: Averages back to 1896.
AVAILABILITY: http://averages.dowjones.com/

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