Finding Historical Financial Statements with Compustat

You can search for historical financial statements through Compustat in WRDS. 

Choose Database

• Select Compustat - Capital IQ

• Under Tools in the lower right hand area select Complete Financial Statements (XLS)

Step One: Date Range

• Select desired start and end years 

Step Two: Search

• Click Code lookup; a new window will open

• Type company name, e.g. Xerox, into search box; hit Lookup codes

• Copy and paste ticker symbol back into the Company Code box on the main WRDS search page (Note: Highlight the ticker symbol and manually copy and paste it into the search box rather than using the Code List feature in the Code Lookup window)

• Click Submit Query 

• Data Request Summary window will open

• Right mouse click on the highlighted file name

• Choose Save Target As option

• Save as a .xls file to your computer

• Open file in Excel