Market Research

Financial Industry Market Reports

In addition to companies in the market research field, several other industries are actively engaged in producing market reports and studies. One of the most intensive research areas can be found in the financial and investment industry where companies produce large volumes of data include excellent market studies.

The Weblinks Collection

Consumer Payments Research Industry Reference Guide *The US Federal Reserve Bank of Boston provides an in-depth guide (in PDF format) to companies that undertake research on methods consumers use to make payments. This information could prove useful for market researchers looking for retail consumer data.
Hoover's Online *Provides profiles, financial data and other information on thousands of companies. Some information is free, including basic company profiles while more in-depth material requires a subscription. Also, for those researching industry or company history there is an archive of defunct companies that Hoovers once covered but have either been bought out or have closed their doors. Unfortunately, this Business Boneyard feature is not easy to access and only available if the company name is known.
Moody's Economy.com *Offers reports that look at industries mostly from a macro perspective rather than individual companies. While a lot of this deals with economic analysis there can also be good marketing metric and information found in these reports.
Reuters Research Reports *Provides access and ability to purchase industry and company research reports produced by over 350 financial and brokerage sources. Unfortunately, the search function is very limited (by company and industry only) and does not allow for keyword searching.
Standard and Poor's Industry Surveys *Classic publication long a fixture in university libraries, these highly detailed reports provide excellent insight into an industry. Downside though is that these are very expensive (though slices of the report can be purchased) and reports are available for only the 50 largest industries.
Yahoo Finance Stock Research Center *This section Yahoo Finance is targeted to investors and allows for the purchase of research reports. Users can search for reports either by entering a company's stock symbol or navigating to a company by using the Sector/Industry Analysis option. Users will also need a Yahoo account to make the purchase.

Finding Secondary Research Tutorial
Locating good research is often difficult. Find useful sources in the Finding Secondary Research section of our highly detailed Principles of Marketing tutorial. Click Here for Tutorial

Preparing a Market Study Tutorial
Find a step-by-step process for researching markets and reporting information the Preparing a Market Study section of our highly detailed Principles of Marketing tutorial. Click Here for Tutorial