Accounting Resources: Research Companies/Financial Disclosures

There is more than one way to get the SEC filings of a public company.

• SEC’s EDGAR database of public company filings.

• Mergent Online, is set up in two ways. Use the ‘Government Filings’ tab to set filters for your searches, or do a search on an individual company, then choose the Filings tab to bring up specific filings. Mergent interface makes it easy to download into excel, Word, HTML or PDF formats. This interface tends to be more convenient to use if your company's name changes frequently.

Which SEC filings give me the most relevant information for my analysis?

• The form 10-K , an annual financial disclosure overview, is a good place to be thorough. Especially check out the footnotes to the financials and the Management Discussion.
   
• Other frequently-used filings are ARS —the annual report; SC-13 changes in beneficial ownership, S-8 changes in employee benefit plans, DEF 14 proxy series. For a complete list of filing types and what they cover see http://www.sec.gov/about/forms/secforms.htm

These resources are great for identifying key companies operating within an industry and/or browsing to get ideas about which companies you'd like to research. Note - if you need absolutely accurate company financials for your course or, do not use Yahoo Finance or Business Insights: Global. Instead, once you find your company/companies, then go and use any of the resources under the "Company Financials & Annual Reports" or "SEC Filings" boxes of this page.

Option A: Browsing

Yahoo Finance Path = pick an Industry, then once in the industry, use Company Index

Leadership Libraries Directory Try the main search box at the top of the page. This resource specializes in public and private US companies, news/media companies, associations and nonprofits.

Option B: Look up a known company's name:

Business Insights: Global. Try a company name in the search box. Click on a company name in the results list, you will see detailed profile information. Public companies have a ticker symbol, the exchange, SIC and NAICS codes, company website, and fiscal year will be noted.

Mergent Online Do a company search, then either inspect the results for that company or look up what's under the ‘competitors’ or the ‘equity reports’ tabs to find additional companies.

Leadership Libraries Directory Simply use the search box.

Option C: Create Company Lists

Lexis-Nexis Academic Click Discover Topics: Business, then scroll down until you see Company Dossier. Click on "Create a Company List." Once on that page, choose the tab "Create a Company List" or "Compare Companies."

Business Insights: Global. Under the Companies tab, use the Company Finder search

Mergent Online Do a company search, then either look up what's under the ‘competitors’ or the ‘equity reports’ tabs

Leadership Libraries Directory One on the landing page, click into the search box and the most popular filters will appear, or use the Show All Filters button. This resource lets you create a list by organizaiton size, industry, job function, geography, or executive biography.

Thomson ONE/Investext This resource only works with IE browsers, however it has strong list-building capacity under the Research tab. Great public company coverage and some private company coverage. Investext content include investment analyst reports.