From the Bulletin Today: “The Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services will move from leased space near the Minneapolis campus to Opus Hall in 2012, and Keffer Library services will be consolidated on the second floor of Opus Hall.” Full article here.
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Charles J. Keffer Library
Business & Economics, Charles J. Keffer Library, Database Highlights & Trials
SWOT Analyses in Library Databases
Business students often ask how to find SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analyses of companies. Until now, our only source for ready-made SWOT analyses was Datamonitor company reports, available via Business Source Premier.
Now we have another source: OneSource Global Business Browser. And the SWOTs here are more detailed and analytical than those from Datamonitor.
To access the OneSource Int’l SWOTs, follow these steps.
- From the main UST Libraries page click on the Databases A – Z link.
- On the OneSource Global Business Browser landing page search for your company
under the “Companies” search box. - Search for your company within the “Companies” box. Remember, most companies in OneSource are large publicly traded corporations.
- Once you’ve identified your company among the search results (yours will usually be the one headquartered in the US, with a US stock listing), click on the Strengths/Weaknesses link among the list of links on the right hand side of the page.
Can’t find a SWOT? Don’t panic.
Remember that the SWOT analysis is not difficult to make. First grab a SWOT from Reference USA International, using the process outlined above, to use as a template. Use Proquest Newsstand Complete, Factiva, and Business Source Premier to retrieve press releases and media articles on company and its executives for the past twelve months. (Focus on CEO, Chairman, and CFO interviews, new product releases, earnings releases, and stock analyst opinions on the industry or company.) Within Business Source Premier, also look for a Datamonitor company profile. If the company is public, go to their website–usually the “investors” or “company information” sections–to find the company’s SEC 10-K, 10-Q, and 14-A filings.
Still unconvinced? (Still reading?) Here’s a brief explanation of how valuable a SWOT can be, from The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management:
An acronym of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, SWOT analysis provides a simple but powerful tool for evaluating the strategic position of the firm. It is especially useful for senior executives undertaking a fundamental reappraisal of a business, in that it permits a free thinking environment, unencumbered by the constraints often imposed by a finance driven budgetary planning system.
Business & Economics, Charles J. Keffer Library, Libraries, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library, Subjects/Topics
What Is An Asset-Backed Security?
Ever wondered? Below is a sample of UST Libraries resources you can use to answer this question.
Here’s an answer from Oxford Handbook of International Financial Terms, one of our most useful resources for usable definitions of financial terms:
asset-backed. Generic term for securities or financing methods where the underlying obligation and the source of interest and principal repayment is the cash flow from a particular financial asset or a portfolio (pool) of financial assets. Examples of asset-backed securities include receivables from commercial loans, credit cards, auto loans, real estate, inventory financing, and other securities (cf. mortgage-backed). The key factor in putting together such securities is the ability to differentiate or pool specific income producing assets so as to establish a legitimate legal claim or lien thereon.
How did I get here? Follow these steps.
- Reference resources search for “finance” (without quotes) in All of St Thomas/electronic only
- Scroll through results to Oxford Handbook of International Financial Terms
- Search for “asset-backed” (without quotes)
- Scroll through results, which include asset-backed, asset-backed security, asset-backed finance, asset-backed commercial paper, mortgage-backed, and other related terms.
What if these definitions aren’t enough?
- Chapters of The Handbook of Fixed Income Securities are available in the reference section of the Keffer Library, offer some great explanation and insight.
- Can’t get to the Keffer Library? Try this e-book, The Handbook of Financial Instruments. Chapters 14 to 20 explain simple, direct language about collateralized debt obligations, agency and non-agency mortgage-backed securities, and more in clear and understandable terms.
Well, what’s happening with asset-backed finance in the world right now?
- Good question! Here’s a great Financial Times article from April 21 about how investors are re-evaluating the US mortgage market.
- Want some more articles like this? Go to Factiva and follow these steps:
- In the Free Text box, type “asset-backed” (without quotes)
- In the Subject section below the Free Text box, click on “subject”
- Click the + beside Corporate/Industrial News
- Scroll to Funding/Capital and click the word so that it shows up in pink above the selection field
- Click the Run Search button
- You’ll get a lot of results. Look for articles with titles like “Why REITs Could Lead Mortgage-Backed Comeback” or “ECB Moves to Restore Confidence in Securitisation” to get a good overview of what investment banks, investors, and even regulatory agencies are doing in asset-backed financing.
Business & Economics, Charles J. Keffer Library, Libraries, Recently Read
Now Accepting Applications: Investment Banks And More!
After an understandably dry spell, investment banks are hiring fresh MBAs again, according to a recent article in the New York Times:
Though some banks are still cautious, business school counselors are telling students to be persistent. Banks under-hired during the market collapse, the counselors say, and will soon be creating more full-time positions than former interns can fill.
And there are other mentions of the trend. Take a look here at articles in Business Source Premier on MBAs and the job market. Want more still? Try any of our Business: Articles & Books databases with the keywords mba, hir*, job, employ*, market*. Contact a librarian for other search strategies.
Looking for something more local? Try the Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal. Fifteen per cent of Twin Cities employers are looking to hire in Q2, according to a Manpower survey referred to in the link above. Want to find more in the Minneapolis/St Paul Business Journal, but you’re blocked by “for subscriber only” messages? Access backfiles and subscriber-only content here, via the UST Libraries.
Psychology librarian Merrie Davidson is an avid knitter. She knits at the reference desk, on the bus, at home, while walking her dog, Audrey. Because she very generously gives away the items she creates, her coworkers, friends, and family all benefit from her hobby.
And so do complete strangers. Ten fold.
Late one recent evening Merrie hung ten hand-knitted winter hats from a tree outside The Wedge Co-Op near her home in south Minneapolis. She figured that those needing hats would find them there, eventually.
The next morning she visited the tree and found every hat gone. She was astonished. Being most recently from Florida, Merrie may not have realized just how valuable a warm hat can be in Minnesota. “I thought maybe one would be gone the next morning,” she said.
The new owners of these hats, as it turns out, are as thankful for Merrie’s hats as she is happy to give them away. The very next morning, Merrie found an impressively colored hand-made sign hanging from the tree, reading “Thank U Hat Tree.” Which makes Merrie very happy.
Merrie does not usually knit ten hats in a row. She was participating in The Knitting Olympics, an event that coincides with the Olympics, during which knitters declare their projects and work to finish them between the opening and closing ceremonies. She and fellow knitters have been tracking each other on the über-social-networking-for-knitters-site Ravelry.com.
Visit Merrie in the Keffer Library on the Minneapolis campus anytime to talk psychology, education, ASL (she worked as an interpreter before becoming a librarian), dogs, books, and, of course, knitting.
Click for the rest!
Most web users know and use Google. According to comScore, a market research firm that tracks search statistics, Google captured 65.4 per cent of the US online search market in January. That’s two-thirds of the 15.2 billion searches run in the US in January.
Other interesting bits: Its global market share is estimated to be 86 per cent. Its IPO price in August 2004 was $85; yesterday it closed at $541. And there’s more! It’s the #1 website in the world. It processes 20 petabytes a day, or something like 1330 times the information currently held in the Library of Congress.
Want to see these figures and more? Click the image for the rest of the Google Facts and Figures infographic, from Pingdom.
Business & Economics, Charles J. Keffer Library, Recently Read
E-Books, Goats, Zhu Zhu Hamsters: What’s The Hot Gift This Holiday Season?
Contrary to a discussion I had with friends at breakfast this morning, e-books seem to be hitting their stride in the US marketplace. And though they probably won’t ever reach the fever pitch of a holiday season must-have toy, such as this year’s Zhu Zhu Hamster, more people want them.
In September the US saw e-book sales grow to $15.9 million, up 170 per cent from a year ago. Gartner, a global leader in technology insights (to which all UST students have access), wrote in its September report “A New Ecosystem Defines E-Book’s Second Chapter” that the technology is getting a “second take,” and that this one will stick. Gartner reports that the global e-book market is forecast to be as much as $2.3 billion by 2013. Mobile device compatibility, as with netbooks and smartphones, is among factors driving demand.
Or it could be that grown-ups want tiny high-def camcorders, which are selling strong. Or goats, as reported by The Times. Goats, along with toilets, are very popular gifts for the less fortunate among buyers in the UK. (The goats are then donated to recipients in less developed countries, via Oxfam, which has facilitated 200,000 such donations in the last five years.)
What are you planning to give this holiday season? What are you hoping to receive?
In July of 1959 there was an off the cuff debate between two leaders about the perceived industrial strengths of the Soviet Union and the United States at an American products exposition in Moscow. I bring this up not because I am obsessed with cold war political history, but because one of the participants in that debate is predominant in the movie ‘Watchmen’ which is based on the iconic graphic novel that opens this week. Can you name this American politician? Can you give me the moniker attributed to this impromptu debate? Can you tell me if you plan to see ‘Watchmen’ on Friday? I want to know all of these things so please let me know.
Either my question last week about the crazy baseball play was too cryptic, or no one is that interested in the Chicago Cubs or games in which there is more than one baseball on the field. But through a series of errors and misjudgments not one but two balls were in play at the same time and the extra ball was used by the Cubs to get a player from the opposite team out. The play was contested but since the Cubs lost the game anyway, it was not a big deal and the event was consigned to realm of obscure trivia.
Thanks to everyone who tried!
In 1959 the Chicago Cubs were only in year 51 of their now 101 year odyssey to experience firsthand what it is like to never win a World Series championship. Things were going better for Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks that year having won the National League Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive year. On a much less prestigious, but way more hilarious note Ernie Banks was involved in one of the craziest plays in baseball history that year at Wrigley Field. Can you tell me what happened? More importantly can you explain it to me without getting really complicated because the situation is funny but the details will make my eyes glaze over. If you can do all of these things please let me know. As always the only prizes for correct answers are bragging rights.
Speaking of bragging rights last week I wanted to know which pioneering film director who passed in 1959 was name checked in one of the most memorable movie lines of all time. The line ‘All right Mr. Demille ‘m ready for my close-up’ is spoken by Gloria Swanson at the end of Sunset Boulevard.
Join me while I listen to Marianne Hageman and Peter Keenen brag about getting the question correct.
Thanks as always to everyone who played.
Which pioneering film director who died in 1959 was immortalized in front of the camera in one of the most famous lines in movie history?
If you can let me know.
Last week I wanted to know the name of a very catchy song about a very unsavory character that won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1959. Who could that be? Could that someone be Mack the Knife? It could be and it is. Who could the singer of this particular version of the song be? Could that someone be Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong or Frank Sinatra or Michael Buble or Robbie Williams? It could be since they all did versions of this song – but Bobby Darin’s version is the one that got the Grammy and it became one of his signature songs.
Please help me congratulate those in the know –
Ann Hale
Marianne Hageman
Ann Kenne
Thanks to everyone who played!