Sourcing and charting data in FitchConnect

FitchConnect users, have you tried out the charting function? In case you don’t know… in addition to its country and industry reports, just like its predecessor BMI Research, FitchConnect includes a huge data bank of macroeconomic and industry data, available for download and manipulation.

Here, to demonstrate how easy it is, we will chart the GDP per capita for the last 10 years for the MINT countries: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey.  For comparison purposes we will opt to display the data in US$.

Getting started:

To begin, select the ‘Interactive Charts’ option from the ‘DataTools’ menu.

Selecting your data is an easy 4-step process using the arrow buttons at the top. You can download raw data to Excel or display it as a chart or table.

Step 1: Select your Geography:

Select the country or countries you require from the ‘Select Entities / Geographies’ options. Within Geographies you can either browse by continent using the > icons or search using the ‘Find regions’ box.

Remember to select each of the countries you require using the check-boxes. Click ‘Proceed’ to move to the next step. A tick should now be displayed on the Entities button.

Step 2: Select your Indicator(s):

Now click on ‘Select Data Items’ to select the specific data you want to use. BMI contains a databank of more than 1.6 million  lines of data covering both industrial markets and macroeconomic data. For GDP, we will need the ‘Macro Economic’ menu. Open it using the > icon next to the title.

Wherever you see the > icon, you can open further sub-menus to drill further into the data. If you are unsure of where to find the data items you require, search for them using the ‘Find data items’ box.

Click on ‘Proceed’ the the bottom of your screen to move on. 

Step 3: Select Date Ranges:

Select your data range and frequency. Data may be reported monthly, quarterly or annually. Be aware that most data is only reported on an annual basis. Depending on the datasets you have selected, your options here may vary.

From here, download data directly to Excel via the button at the top right.

Step 4: Visualise your data:

Ignore the left hand side if you are downloading macroeconomic data and click on ‘Proceed’. (FitchConnect also provides finanical data which is not part of our subscription).

Select your chart format. We have chosen a line chart here. Click on ‘Refine’ and ‘Annotate’ on the left to make any changes you require – including colours, labelling, axes, etc. View your data in different chart formats to select the best.

Make any additional changes you require then click on ‘More’ at the top right to save your chart and/or table as an image file.

If you are interested in downloading and charting data, you may also want to read our post on Finding economic data in Passport.

If you have any questions about downloading data or charting within our resources, feel free to contact MIRC or the Kings Norton Library.