Business Librarian
Getting Started with Company Research
- Identify the complete, official name of the company: A company's common name (for example, McDonald's) may not be its official name (McDonald's Corporation). When possible, use the company's complete official name as your search term.
- Find the company's ticker symbols: Ticker symbols are letter codes that stand for specific publicly traded companies on stock exchanges and indices. Using a ticker symbol when searching for information is helpful for accuracy.
- Find the company's investor website: Publicly traded companies provide annual reports and required disclosures on their investor relations webpages, and often include additional materials related to corporate governance. A simple Google search for the company name + "investor relations" can help you locate these resources on a company website.
Company Profiles & Financial Information
Company Profiles are sources of comprehensive information about a company's overall operations. These resources will often provide details about a company's executive leadership, board, investors, supply chain, financials, and more.
Company Financials are easily located in official documents from the Securities Exchange Commission for U.S. publicly-traded companies. There is generally much more information available about publicly traded companies than those which are privately held.
- Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Find a Company Profile by entering the company name or ticker symbol in the basic search field. - NetAdvantage This link opens in a new window
Most comprehensive source of public company information. Search by company name or ticker symbol. to find Company Profiles and Company Financials. - Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Find company profiles, SWOT analyses, and articles from scholarly and professional publications.
SEC Filings for Company Research
Public companies in the US are required to file annual, quarterly, and current reports based on SEC regulations. Annual and quarterly reports include financial information for the period covered by the report. Item 1 of annual reports includes risk factors that inform overall macroenvironment analyses.
| Form Type | Description |
|---|---|
| 10-K | This is a company's annual report. It provides audited annual financial statements, a discussion of material risk factors for the company and its business, and a management’s discussion and analysis of the company’s results of operations for the prior fiscal year. |
| 10-Q | These are quarterly reports. A 10-Q includes unaudited quarterly financial statements, updates regarding material risks that the company faces, and management’s discussion and analysis of the company’s results of operations for the prior fiscal quarter. |
| 8-K | Current reports which disclose material events or information that the company chooses or is required to make public prior to its next scheduled quarterly or annual report. |
- EDGAR This link opens in a new window
EDGAR indexes all required SEC filings of publicly traded companies. Search by company name.
- How to Read a 10-KA guide to understanding the kinds of information available in companies' 10-K reports
