S&P Capital IQ, a business unit of McGraw Hill Financial, has announced the availability of expanded research and data from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services on its proprietary research platform.

Neil Smith, Managing Director at S&P Capital IQ, said: “The marketplace increasingly sees the S&P Capital IQ desktop as the destination for credit and risk research, primarily because customers can access the vast and extensive coverage and insights provided by S&P Ratings research, analytics and data sets.”

“Given today’s fast moving markets coupled with rapidly changing company risk profiles and diverse monetary policies around the world, we perceived both the need and the opportunity to bring S&P Ratings Research into our single point of access investment research module,” he added.

The RatingsDirect Investment Research solution puts the detailed investment research information subscribers need at their fingertips, saving them time by streamlining their workflow with sophisticated search functionality, customized alerting tools, and links to several leading investment banks’ proprietary investment research models.

In addition, clients can now read and use their own specific insights, assessments and recommendations side by side with those produced by the leading investment banks, important local brokerages or third party credit ratings firms.

Among the information now available on S&P Capital IQ’s RatingsDirect are: Standard & Poor’s credit ratings and research; aggregated intelligence at the sector, industry, company and security level; dynamic ratings distribution and migration charts; early warning signals, such as Market Derived Signals, which incorporate daily pricing information from the Credit Default Swap (CDS) marketplace; access to three years of company financials with easy “click-through” to original filings; details on company professionals and Board members, SEC filings, key developments and more; advanced, multi-data point screening and charting; and the ability to download analyst earnings models in their original Excel format, including formulas and assumptions for easy manipulation.

The Investment Research module enables users to search for and purchase research from S&P Capital IQ’s extensive aftermarket research collection.

This collection features third party credit research, independent and brokerage research reports produced by 1,500 third party firms who cover equities, fixed income, credit, commodities, countries, industries or companies in markets across the globe.

The Real Time or Aftermarket Research Collection is a premium service available via a subscription to S&P Capital IQ's proprietary desktop platform and is used by capital market firms around the globe to perform risk analysis, financial analysis and idea generation on investments, mergers & acquisitions, risk management, or buy-out and funding opportunities in various industries or for specific companies.

Additionally, subscribers to the S&P Capital IQ desktop can also access earnings estimates on over 18,000 companies across the globe.

S&P’s Ratings Services provides in-depth analytical coverage and has rated more than 49,700 corporations, 59,000 financial institutions, 7,200 insurance companies, 918,800 government securities, and 90,000 structured finance entities and securities.

The S&P Capital IQ platform is widely used by financial professionals globally to develop investment ideas, conduct financial analysis, and assess credit risk.