Creating a Data-Driven Company Research Brief

Hello! Your previous lessons built the pieces of a company study: a decision question, a research plan, sourced calculations, and charts that make fair comparisons. This lesson turns those pieces into a published, two-page research brief that a recruiter can open quickly and you can defend in an interview.

The goal is a small, complete release—not a premature DCF or a ten-page report. Allow 45–60 minutes if your research and chart data are ready, or use two 30-minute sessions. If a material figure still lacks a credible source, fix that before publishing rather than treating the deadline as permission to guess.

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Give the brief one job

Your brief should answer the decision-oriented question you formulated earlier. For example: Is the company’s recent growth accompanied by improving profitability, and how does its latest performance compare with selected peers? That question gives each page a purpose. Page one establishes what the business does and what changed; page two tests the interpretation against a comparison, risks, and missing evidence.

Watch these short excerpts from Andrew Stotz’s Write equity research that wins the CFA Research Challenge. They address two habits that matter even in a much shorter portfolio brief: put the conclusion where a busy reader can find it, and support the argument rather than relying on confident phrasing.

A published CFA Research Challenge report offers a useful example of structure, not a template to copy or current evidence for your company. Notice how its opening names several distinct reasons for its view and connects them to a conclusion. Your historical company study can do that without issuing a stock rating or price target.

For your brief, write a two- or three-sentence answer first. A useful pattern is:

“Over FY[year]–FY[year], [company] grew [defined metric], while [profitability metric] [changed in a specified way]. Compared with [clearly defined peer set], its latest [metric] is [comparison]. This supports a qualified view that [interpretation], although [strongest uncertainty] prevents a firmer conclusion.”

Replace every bracket with your own verified result. If the peer data are not comparable, omit that comparison; do not conceal the problem in a footnote.

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Lay out two pages a reader can scan

Create the brief as a document or slides, then export a two-page PDF. Use the company-study folder and research question you established earlier. This layout is a starting point; give more space to the evidence that actually decides your question.

Page	What the reader should find
1 — Company and performance	Company, industry and “as of” date; research question and qualified headline answer; a short explanation of how the business earns revenue; Chart 1 on historical growth; Chart 2 on a relevant profitability or cash metric; a few sentences interpreting both charts.
2 — Test and conclusion	Chart 3 testing a comparison or another important dimension; the strongest counterargument; conclusion and what would change it; explicit limitations; compact source and workbook references.

The three charts need different analytical jobs, not merely different appearances. Depending on your available disclosures, a coherent set might be revenue over at least three comparable financial years, operating-margin movement over those years, and a latest-year peer-margin comparison. If peer definitions do not match, substitute a sourced segment, customer, or cash-flow chart that genuinely tests the thesis. Do not invent a third chart to meet a count.

Write a takeaway title for each chart, but keep the claim within the data. “Reported margin rose by 3 percentage points over two years” is a finding. “A durable competitive advantage caused margin expansion” requires further evidence. Under each chart, show its metric definition, units, periods, and a source-and-method note that remains legible in the PDF.

A good page has more than graphics. Between them, explain why a measured change matters to the research question, while distinguishing your interpretation from management’s explanation. Keep the business description to the details needed to understand the metrics: who pays, for what, and which operating activity plausibly drives revenue or cost.

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Make the Excel workbook the audit trail

The PDF is the reader-facing argument; the Excel workbook is where someone checks it. You do not need a three-statement forecast for this release. You do need a clear route from each material figure to its disclosure and from each derived figure to its formula.

Use your existing workbook if it already has equivalent sheets. Otherwise, a compact version has four:

1. Sources: Source ID, document title, public URL, publication date, access date, pages or sections used, claims supported, and reliability notes.
2. Inputs: One row per reported observation, with company, numeric year, metric and definition, unit, reported value, source ID, and exact page or section. Preserve whether figures are consolidated or standalone.
3. Analysis: Labeled calculations such as growth, CAGR, margins, peer median, and the comparison cited in your conclusion. Formulas should refer to Inputs, not retyped values.
4. Charts: The ranges feeding the three visuals, with chart titles and matching source notes.

For instance, suppose Inputs contains reported revenue in column E for 2022, 2023, and 2024 on rows 2–4, with the numeric years in column B. Your CAGR calculation can reference those cells:

=(Inputs!E4/Inputs!E2)^(1/(Inputs!B4-Inputs!B2))-1

That formula uses two elapsed years, not three observations, as its exponent denominator. Label the result with its period and revenue definition. Keep source IDs beside the reported values, and link those IDs to the public documents in Sources. A PDF chart note might then name the filing pages, say “author calculations,” and point to the relevant Analysis cells. The workbook and PDF must use the same figures, periods, and definitions.

Before exporting, change one Input value temporarily and check that the calculation and chart update; then restore it against the disclosure. This catches charts pasted as disconnected numbers. Check that no chart silently mixes percentages with percentage-point changes, different fiscal year-ends, or actual results with estimates.

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Conclude with what you know—and what you do not

A conclusion is qualified when it names the evidence for the view, its strongest alternative explanation, and the information needed to resolve the uncertainty. For example, faster revenue growth alongside a falling margin may indicate that growth has not yet translated into operating leverage. It does not, by itself, establish whether the cause is pricing, product mix, temporary investment, or accounting differences.

Give limitations their own visible space on page two. Prioritize the limitations that could alter the conclusion: a small or imperfect peer set, inconsistent segment definitions, unavailable customer-level data, a short historical period, or reliance on management’s unaudited operating measures. State how each affects your interpretation; a generic “data may be inaccurate” disclaimer is less useful.

This brief is company research, not an investment recommendation. Unless you have built and checked a valuation, do not add “BUY,” a target price, or an implied DCF result because professional reports often contain them. Those skills come later in the course. A well-supported conclusion about growth quality and competitive position is more credible than an unsupported price target.

Publication also calls for original writing and proper attribution. The CFA Institute’s Research Challenge rules are competition rules, not requirements for your portfolio, but their discussion of plagiarism is a useful final check on borrowed prose, forecasts, and charts.

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Export, publish, and describe only the finished work

Export the document to PDF and open it at normal reading size. Check that it is exactly two pages, chart text is readable, links work, and source notes survived export. Open the Excel file separately to verify formulas and source URLs. Do not upload copies of third-party reports merely because you used them; link to the public originals unless redistribution is permitted.

Then place the PDF and workbook in the appropriate company folder of your public repository and update its README. Use your established folder names; the entry should make the two files immediately visible:

## Company research brief

- [Read the two-page brief](reports/company-brief.pdf)
- [Inspect the source-linked Excel analysis](models/company-analysis.xlsx)

Question: [Your decision-oriented question]
Conclusion: [One qualified sentence]
Scope: Reported FY[year]–FY[year] results; information reviewed through [date].

Commit the files, then check the public GitHub view, not just your local copy. A recruiter should be able to open the PDF from the repository page, locate the workbook, understand what was studied, and reach the original public sources. If the workbook cannot be previewed comfortably in the browser, the PDF and README still need to communicate the result without requiring a download.

Only after that check, write a resume bullet using what you actually completed. Adapt this structure rather than claiming numbers you have not verified:

Published a two-page research brief on a publicly listed company, analyzing [actual number] years of disclosures in a source-linked Excel workbook and using three charts to assess [specific growth or competitive question].

If you can defend a more specific finding in an interview, replace the final clause with it. Do not claim a DCF, transaction recommendation, or automated tool in this bullet unless it is already in the published case.

A complete release passes five tests: two readable pages, three decision-relevant and sourced charts, reproducible Excel calculations, a conclusion with material limitations, and working public links. If one fails, fix it before adding the resume link. At your 30-minutes-per-day pace, that is a better first portfolio milestone than an expansive case marked “coming soon.”

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Key takeaways

Lead with the answer to your research question, use three charts to advance distinct parts of the argument, and let the Excel workbook expose the figures and formulas behind them. Publish a conclusion that says what the evidence supports, what could challenge it, and what you have not established. Your resume bullet should describe the completed public artifact—not the larger portfolio you plan to build.

Next, the course moves from this first company brief toward a cross-company sector study. The sourcing, definitions, and publication checks you used here will make that broader comparison much stronger.