The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), a distributor of business information and educational materials which counts Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL) as a related stock, issued third-quarter results earlier today. Sales contracted over 8%. Net income on a dollar basis dropped almost 14%. Earnings per diluted share decreased a very unlucky 13% to $1.07. At least expectations were taken out. Earnings.com indicates a beat of two pennies for per-share profit.

The declines are pretty understandable. When you think about McGraw-Hill, you understand fairly quickly that the company's business model is tied closely to the economy. Education markets must be tough given all the budget cuts happening in school systems across the country. Plus, spending by administrators is probably done these days very slowly and carefully.

FactSet Research Systems (NYSE: FDS) provides up to the minute financial data for the global investment community. Data drives investment decisions, and FactSet controls the flow of data. Reporting 3Q results on 17 June, FactSet posted a 22% gain in revenues, 22% gain in net income, and 20% increase in diluted EPS, beating estimates by $0.02 per share. Despite taking a $2.6 million hit with the loss of Bear Stearns as a client, FactSet added another 500 subscribers to its financial information data sets. Existing subscribers increased their data packages by 20% in average subscriber value. FactSet shows strong revenue growth in both domestic markets, up 18% to $102 million, as well as international markets, revenues up 30% to $45.7 million.

FactSet is all set to complete its purchase of Thomson Fundamentals database in July 2008. This database contains historical financial information back to 1980. Purchase price falls in the $67-80 million range. FactSet senior management estimates this historical information has a market value of approximately $100 million. Historical financial information will be available for purchase through the same distribution channels FactSet presently uses to distribute current financial data to its present global investment clients. FactSet anticipates revenues from this purchase will begin to accrue to the company in early 2010. Final regulatory approval for the purchase by the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice is due any day.

The stock currently trades around $65 and change. Patient investors will realize sizeable gains, but not until well into 2010.