Web Resources for Investors
You Can Be Big Brother
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Web Resources for Investors:
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Note that all of these links lead to external web sites and are not part of PBS.org or Wall $treet Week with FORTUNE.
Every publicly-traded company and has to file financial summaries, word of potentially important news events, and other important documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, usually on a quarterly or annual basis, depending on the type of report. They're a great source for information on earnings performance, executive pay, lawsuits and liabilities, corporate governance and other issues that can affect a company's viability.
Although these documents have long been available to the public theoretically, it wasn't until the advent of the Internet that anyone outside of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area could easily view SEC filings. You are lucky enough not only to live in the age of EDGAR, the SEC's electronic database, but also to have access to documents almost instantly. There used to be a 24-hour delay before electronic filings were made public. Why is the delay significant? Because big funds sometimes dump stocks immediately on perceived red flags in SEC documents.
You could try finding documents using the SEC.gov Web site. However -- is this really a surprise? -- the most efficient research often is through private companies who have built search engines specifically for EDGAR. Unfortunately, most of the sites that used to have free offerings now charge for their services.
If you know exactly which company you're interested in, try its investor relations site. Many publicly traded companies now make their own SEC filings available on their own sites, usually through a third-party service such as 10KWizard or Edgar Online.
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