I saw Robert Birch speak on using SQL in financial domains last night.

The setting was at Sharon Cichelli's Polyglot Programmers coding circle. The big new thing I learned about SQL that I did not know was that it was started in 1974 (the year I was born) at IBM (where my Mom worked) by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce! Interesting domain-specific stuff:

• In comparing zip code ranges to incomes via SQL, an institution was able to home in on selective mortgages which were ideal to purchase.
• ROA (Return on Assets) is Income divided by Assets at a balance sheet. A company with an ROA of more than 7% would be good to invest in. Those guys are on their way to taking over the world.
• The ratio of Equity to Assets is a good to track. A ranking of 7, for example, implies that the organization holds 7 times more assets than debt.
• A Market Cap is a dollar figure denoting what it would require to buy out enough of a public company to take it private. Companies with small Market Caps are typically blossoming and may offer the opportunity for up to 20% growth in contrast to a company such as IBM for which one should not hold one's breath for a double digit number.