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Capital IQ, often referred to as Cap IQ, is a web portal that offers a variety of data feeds and software to investors, banks, corporations, universities, and others. According to Investopedia, Cap IQ analyzes more than 135 billion data points a year from an assortment of sources. The data provides information on over 62,000 public companies and 4.4 million private companies. Altogether, Cap IQ covers the financials of more than 99% of the world’s market capitalization. Some of the information provided includes:

· Financial statements of firms

· Firm valuation

· International market data

· Information on fixed income securities

· Credit ratings of firms

· Market data such as security prices

· Competitor data

· A variety of qualitative data

· And much more

Cap IQ also has a variety of plugins that allow you to embed data into other programs. For example, there is an Excel plugin where data queries can be integrated into spreadsheets and formulas. Using this plugin, you can build and maintain Excel models to monitor the changes in information. There is also a PowerPoint plugin that allows you to create tables, charts, and graphs that Capital IQ says can automatically update each time you need to refresh data. This feature lets you avoid the trouble of copying and pasting each time the data in the Excel spreadsheet changes. This ease of use can be beneficial when making your presentation in the final module of this course.

As a finance professional, there are many uses you can find for Cap IQ. You can monitor companies as well as the markets in which they operate. You can analyze credit risk and other management risks and build Excel models and PowerPoint presentations on your research findings. As a student, perhaps one of the most important benefits of Cap IQ is that it can save you a lot of time. With Cap IQ, there is no need to manually search the 10-Ks or 10-Qs in the EDGAR database and manually carry that information over to your spreadsheet. A few minutes now that is spent understanding Cap IQ can save you a great of time later.