Included in this guide are resources most commonly used to find Industry Ratios. The resources do not have ratios for individual companies, only industry averages.
Financial ratios are often used to compare a company against an industry average or other companies in order to benchmark or measure a company's performance. Industry ratios are often useful when creating the financial components of a business plan and starting a new company. When using these resources make sure you are comparing similar sized companies. Each resource will give different figures for each industry based upon the average asset size of the companies in the industry.
Users may search data by SIC and NAICS code and line of business. If industry averages are not included in a particular resource, then you could take an average from a list of companies with the same NAICS or SIC code. Consult the Industry & Market Research Guide to learn more about SIC/NAICS codes.