Research — Feb 17, 2026
Solving Valuation Blind Spots with Aftermarket Research and Visible Alpha
Highlights
The Client
Global Professional Services Firm
USER BASE
Advisory and Consulting
Advisory and Consulting teams require clear, comprehensive, defensible research and insights. Not all sources provide the depth, context or tools needed to support confident analysis and decision-making.
This professional services firm leveraged S&P Global’s Aftermarket Research on Capital IQ Pro, along with S&P Global’s AI tools and Visible Alpha’s granular consensus data, to address gaps in methodology, industry insight, and analyst forecasts. These combined tools and datasets helped expand coverage, validate assumptions, and build a more complete view of company performance.
Pain Points
Establishing the correct valuation framework for a niche industry
The team needed to understand how the market valued companies in a specialized sector. Internal debate emerged around the appropriate performance metric, and traditional industry materials lacked the specificity required.
Limited breadth of expert insight during a period of disruption
While the industry was undergoing significant change, the team’s existing research relied on a narrow set of sources. They lacked access to a broad range of expert opinions and forward looking forecasts, including granular KPIs and detailed explanations behind key assumptions.
The Solution
Aftermarket Research gave the team access to fundamental equity research and industry reports that provided:
- Initiation of Coverage Reports: Comprehensive reports published when an analyst begins coverage of a company, outlining its business model, industry context, and initial valuation approach.
- Industry Overviews: Summaries of market trends, competitive landscape, and key drivers affecting a specific sector.
- Company Reports and Research Notes: Detailed analyses and updates on individual companies, including earnings, forecasts, and price targets.
All from over 2,000 major global research providers, including Bernstein (exclusive), Citi (exclusive on Capital IQ Pro), J.P. Morgan, UBS, and more.
To deepen the analysis further, Visible Alpha added standardized, model derived estimates that revealed segment level revenue drivers, margin assumptions, and operating metrics across thousands of companies. AI powered tools within S&P Capital IQ Pro helped surface and analyze these insights more efficiently, allowing the team to validate key assumptions and align their valuation model with a more accurate consensus view.
Fig 1. AI-Powered Search with Document Intelligence, available within S&P Capital IQ Pro.
Image as of February 10, 2026.
How Aftermarket Research and Visible Alpha Solved Each Pain Point
By combining Aftermarket Research, Visible Alpha, and AI-powered capabilities in S&P Global Capital IQ Pro, the team strengthened its analysis and decision making through:
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Initiation of coverage reports clarified the right valuation approach and provided transparency behind forecasts | Initiation of coverage reports acted as “CliffsNotes” for the industry, providing clarity on business models, product overviews, key economic drivers, and common valuation techniques. When analysts were unsure which metrics the market applied to this niche sector, multiple initiation of coverage reports confirmed the appropriate valuation lens, eliminating back-and-forth debate and aligning the team’s analysis with investor expectations. Aftermarket Research added company-level transparency, making it clear who published each price target, why they set it, and the full context behind the assumptions. |
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ChatIQ and Document Intelligence Unlocked Insights and Efficiency by Integrating Research with AI | ChatIQ and Document Intelligence within S&P Capital IQ Pro harnessed generative AI capabilities to analyze vast document repositories while enabling users to generate deep insights with precise citations for full auditability. Integrated views brought together Aftermarket Research with additional sources such as filings, news articles, earnings call transcripts, and macroeconomic updates (Pronto). Searchable topics, industry overlays, and automated insight extraction allowed analysts to search across multiple documents efficiently, helping them understand how the market evaluates companies, emerging trends, and broader economic drivers. |
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Aftermarket Research + Visible Alpha expanded coverage and fortified decision-making | Data from Visible Alpha, now available in S&P Global Capital IQ Pro, worked alongside Aftermarket Research to help the team build a more complete analysis of industries, companies, and trends. Together, the enriched estimates data and investment research gave them deeper insight, including segment-level KPIs for individual business units or product lines. With the Visible Alpha add on, the firm was able to access:
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The Impact
With Aftermarket Research and Visible Alpha, the valuation team:
- Eliminated uncertainty around the appropriate valuation methodology
- Replaced outdated industry reports with current investor sentiment and consensus expectations
- Cut through forecast noise by focusing on credible, transparent analyst estimates
- Strengthened final valuations with clearer, more defensible assumptions grounded in underlying drivers
With trusted contributors, AI-driven tools for insight discovery, and granular visibility into analyst assumptions and model-level data, Aftermarket Research and Visible Alpha enabled a faster, more confident, and more defensible valuation process.
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Products & Offerings