Investing in the AIM Market

R19–0666 BMAN31000

AIM Stock Exchange

Supporting materials

• Slides/materials: Slides
• Other materials used: Bloomberg terminals

Practicalities

• Group: 16 (8 per session, 2 repeat sessions)
• Length: 50 mins
• Room: Bloomberg Suite (Eddie Davies Library)
• Discipline: Business and Management
• Level: UG3

Learning outcomes:

• Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different search tools
• Identify an appropriate tool to use for finding information for your specific purpose
• Identify and use key databases in your discipline
• Identify and use relevant specialist information common in your discipline

Suggested online resources

N/A as Blackboard space does not allow for embedding resources — Relevant SLS posts will be demonstrated throughout the session

Session content

This hand-on workshop will introduce students to databases which will help them to conduct research for their project which is focused around investing in the AIM market.

Company examples will focus around Nichols plc and their competitors.

The following platforms will be demonstrated

• Bloomberg
• Thomson ONE
• Factiva
• Business Source Premier
• Statista / Mintel

Session plan

Introduction (Slides 1–3)
Introduce the learning objectives for the session and explain that we will be providing hands on practice with using the following resources (with the exception of Factiva)

• Use Bloomberg to analyse AIM
• Company info (Thomson ONE and Factiva)
• Sector analysis (Literature and market data)
• Getting support

Searching activity 1 — Bloomberg (Slides 4–6)
Use slides 4–6 to give a brief introduction to Bloomberg and assist students with logging into the Bloomberg terminals.

Demonstrate the following Bloomberg functions:

• SEARCH FTSE AIM: Search (then click on ‘Index/Stats’) — can type SEARCH FTSE AIM SUPERSECTOR to search just the sector indices
• DES: Security Description
• MEMB: Member Weightings (to find who is in which index)
• GP: Price Chart (expand menu, overlay lines, stack axes, export)
• ESG: Environment, Social and Governance Analysis
• FA: Financial Analysis
• HELP: Help

Demonstrate Important keys:

- F1: Help; F8: Equity; F10: Index; Enter: Go; End: Back

Demonstrate some example indices and equities:

• AIM100 Index: FTSE AIM 100 Index
• AXX Index: FTSE AIM All Share
• AXTECH Index: FTSE AIM All-Share Supersector Index — Technology (one for each sector)
• NICL LN Equity: Nichols PLC (London)
• BOO LN Equity: Boohoo Group PLC (London)
• ASC LN Equity: ASOS PLC (London)

AIM100 Bloomberg data

Demonstrate following examples:

• Access Bloomberg, basics of interface, keyboard and search
• Look for indices, descriptions, members
• For one index, choose some members then do price chart and add members
• Export from chart (right click then copy/paste data)
• ESG for one company, key features, export
• Financial analysis for one company, key features export
• Getting help, wayfinding, BMC, Specialist Library Support
• Demonstrate one (tech) or do demo on the whole index or the top 100 index.

Searching Activity 2: Company information — Thomson ONE & Factiva (Slides 7 -18)

Thomson ONE intro (Slide 8–9)
Explain that Thomson ONE is an old product, designed for use in the financial services sector over ten years ago. Mention that it is still updated and has a rich, core selection of features to research a company’s financial history. Explain that there are other components to Thomson ONE, including Deals analysis and Research.

Accessing Thomson ONE (Slide 10–13)
Demonstrate how to access Thomson ONE. Provide an apology to Mac users; Thomson ONE requires the use of Internet Explorer! Demonstrate how to access the database via the Library website and explain how it has to be set to Compatibility View to make it behave like an older version of IE — otherwise some of the features like date selection do not work!

Thomson ONE demo (Slides 14–16)

• Run a search for Nichols plc
• Ask students to repeat the same and have a quick look across the multiple datatypes which are available
• Demonstrate how to access a research report and highlight how these reports (aimed at those making investment decisions) are likely to be relevant to the research they are being asked to undertake for this project.

Factiva demo (Slides 17–20)

• Students will be unable to take part in this demo due to our concurrent user limit within Factiva
• Demonstrate how the “Search builder” function in Factiva can be used to identify trade and industry news articles relating to AIM listed companies and others
• Using the search builder type “performance” or “results” in the free text field
• Now use the “Company” limiter and enter “Nichols plc” and “Britivic plc”
• Run the search and demonstrate how articles can be viewed and also downloaded
• Mention that guidance with searching Factiva is available via the SLS online publication which we will demo at the end of the session

Sector Analysis (Slides 21-
Explain that the project requirement to consider trends relating to ethical performance of companies / markets will require students to consult other sources of information. Highlight that databases of b&m literature and market research are likely to provide relevant information in this area

Business & Management literature (Slide 22)
Highlight that Business Source Premier, ABI Inform and Emerald all operate in a similar way and will contain articles from a variety of publications (trade and academic)

Demo: Business Source Premier (Slide 23)
Run the following search on BSP and ask students to replicate the search and then try some similar searches which are relevant to their own research.

Market research (slide 24)
Highlight that Statista, Mintel and Passport will all be excellent sources of information for this project. Students can chiefly use these to identify any trends in the markets relevant to AIM listed companies.

Demo: Statista (Slide 25)

• Run a search for Soft drinks
• Access the “Average expenditure on soft drinks UK” data
• Demonstrate the Citation function which allows students to easily cite the data from the report in the correct format.

Demo: Mintel (Slide 26)

• Run a search for “Soft Drinks”
• Access the “Soft Drinks Review — March 2019” report
• Access the “Factors Seen to Make Soft Drinks Environmentally Friendly” section of the report
• Demonstrate how students are able to export various sections of the report.

Further support (Slides 27–31)
Highlight relevant support available from the Business Data section of Specialist Library Support (Workshops, online and drop in). Ask the SCONUL/RLUK question

R19–0663