Chapter 13 Capital Structure and Leverage 439
Once you click on SELECT, you should see the “Search Expression Builder” screen. From here, click on “Rank”
and select the top 50 by typing 50 in the box below rank; then click on ADD. You can easily change this to select
the bottom 50 (or perhaps the bottom 5% or 10%). Take a close look at the resulting firms by clicking on SEARCH.
Do you observe any differences between the types of firms that have high debt levels and the types of firms that
have low debt levels? Are these patterns similar to what you expect after reading the chapter? (As a quick re-
view, you may want to look at the average capital structures for different industries, which is summarized in
the text.) Note: The searches are cumulative. So if you ask for the top 10% of the database and follow that by asking for the
bottom 5%, you will be shown the bottom 5% of the top 10%. In other words, you will see only a small subset of the firms
you are asking for. Hence, before beginning a new search, clear all existing searches.
- From the submenu just above the list of firms, you may choose a number of options. “Companies” displays a
list of the firms and allows you to access a firm report. “Profiles” provides key information about the firms,
such as ticker, country, exchange, and industry code. “Financials” gives a couple of key financial figures
(expressed in US dollars) from the firms’ balance sheets and income statements. “Market Data” includes the
firms’ market capitalization, current price, P/E ratio, EPS, and so forth. Finally, “Report Writer” allows you to
create customized company reports.
