S&P Capital IQ vs. Factiva

Cap IQ is well suited for analyzing security pricing and valuation, tracking stock performance over time, looking up comparable transactions, and analyzing valuations on an industry basis. The service is also well suited for charting and data analysis purposes.

Incentivized

A large part of our work depends on the ability to source quality media content from a breadth of dependable sources globally. This is Factiva's bread and butter: it has a very comprehensive list of 'quality' media sources such as nationals, dailies, business journals and magazines from around the world that are easily mined for the content they hold. If you're thinking about anything other than these 'traditional' media sources then Factiva probably isn't your thing. It doesn't do social media.

Incentivized

• Plugins that change and analyze analysis improve it.
• Capital IQ is user-driven, unlike other market participants, which helps streamline the dashboard and acquire accurate data.
• Any report or analysis delivers the most in fewest words. In this data-driven world.

Incentivized

• Factiva offers excellent search builders so that I am able to narrow my search to specific companies or topics very easily.
• Factiva combines a large number of credible sources into one place and allows me to search all of these sources.
• Factiva's use of timestamps helps me understand when the news was known by the market which allows me to analyze how (if at all) that particular piece of news impacted the company's stock price.
• Provides an excellent starting place for learning about a company and/or industry.

Incentivized

• S&P Capital IQ's add-in slows down my Excel when I incorporate formulas into it.
• S&P Capital IQ's algorithms don't necessarily look in the footnotes of company filings, which can make for a less robust analysis of financials and multiples than desired.
• The user interface is not very user-friendly and thus makes maximizing the software's features difficult. It could be more intuitive to use and not so busy (e.g. not so many small icons on one web page). The S&P Capital IQ support team, however, is always available and very helpful.

Incentivized

• The UX leaves room to be desired
• There are often repetitive entries
• The functionality can be confusing

Incentivized

[It's the] best ever.

Incentivized

We had Capital IQ in addition to Bloomberg. It was much easier for a new person to use Capital IQ than Bloomberg. The ease of use was a huge selling point for us. Yahoo finance on the other hand is free, but you cannot gather all the data you may need in one location like you can in Capital IQ.

Incentivized

At the time, Factiva was already being used by the company I worked for - they had developed procedures specifically for using Factiva, so there wasn't really an option. I've used Lexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg exclusively for legal research, so there wasn't really an overlap with Factiva.

Incentivized

• We were a boutique investment bank, so it helped multiple people doing their job at the same time instead of waiting for a turn on the Bloomberg terminal.
• Brought more interactive reports in PDF format to the table.
• Saved some money, if I have to go basic.

Incentivized