These three factors will determine how much information is available about a company.  Try to determine these things early on in your research:

1. Public or private? More data is available about public companies than about private ones.  Private companies have no disclosure requirements, tend to be much smaller than public ones, and there are over 25 million private companies in the US as compared to only ~25,000 public ones.
Example: National Fuel Gas (NFG) and Rich Products are the two largest firms in the Buffalo area, both have revenues of ~$2 billion. NFG is public, Rich Products is private -- more detailed information is available about Bational Fuel Gas.

2. Parent or subsidiary? More data is available about parent companies than about subsidiaries.  Information about subsidiaries (or brands) is often only available under the parent company’s name.
Example: Fisher-Price is another prominent Buffalo area company -- it is a subsidiary of Mattel, a public company based in California. Ressearching Fisher Price requires that you also research Mattel.

3. US or International? The amount of company information available varies from country to country.  Generally, US companies will have the most info available about them.
Example: M&T Bank and HSBC are also prominent Buffalo area companies. HSBC is based in London, M&T is based here in Buffalo, making HSBC more challenging to research than M&T.

Not sure what SEC stands for? Need a definition for what "public company" means? Look it up! Investopedia, Finance-Glossary.com and the NY times Glossary of Financial and Business Terms are good reference sources.

Return to Top

A company's website is a great place to start your research. What a company says about itself on its website can be a valuable source for researchers. Look for a link labeled “About” or “Company Information” or “Investor Relations.” But how can you dig deeper? Try these company profile resources:

Best bet...

• Hoovers: 20 million companies; public and non-public; US and international.

See also...

• OneSource:  4 million companies; public only; US and international.  Best source for analyst reports!
• Reference USA: 13 million companies; public and private; US only. Provides basic information about each company.
• Other options: Business & Company Resource Center, Business Source Complete, Factiva

Not finding your company? Check a specialized directory that provides more in-depth coverage of specific industries, countries or company types. See the Company Directories Guide for more information.

.

Return to Top

Buy! Sell! Hold!: Stock Performance

Best bet...

• S&P NetAdvantage: stock reports, industry surveys, stock ratings, investment recomendations, and more.

See also...

• ValueLine Investment Surveys (HG 4971 M74 print only) - 1,700 public US and International companies
  
• Yahoo Finance, Big Charts, and Reuters Stocks are good free web resources for stock information.

Return to Top

Public Companies:   EDGAR (it stands for Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) provides access to all corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For descriptions of the various types of SEC filings, check Thomson Research's Guide to SEC Filings. Remember, EDGAR is only for public companies that trade on a US exchange (other countries may have equivalent resources to EDGAR -- for example SEDAR (System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval) is Canada's central database for corporate filings).

Best bet...

• OneSource:  10 years of company financial data (income statement, balance sheet, cash flows, etc.) exportable to Excel.

See also...

• Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) : provides aggregated access to historical and current financial information
  
• Annual Reports are a great source for financial and descriptive info about companies.
  • Current annual reports can often be found on the company's website
  • Older annual reports: the UB Library has a collection of annual reports from 1973 to 1995 on microfiche. Includes all companies traded on the American and New York Stock exchanges. Available in the Capen Multimedia Center, call number is MicFiche HG4028.B2 D56.
  • Free collections on the web include: AnnualReports.com , CAROL - Company Annual Reports On-Line , and AnnualReportService.com

Private Companies:

• Directories such as Hoovers and Reference USA , are often the best and only sources. Remember, financials on privates companies are usually only estimates.
• While not required to do so, some larger private companies disclose some level of financial data on their website. For example, Dole is a private company that posts its annual reports on its website.
• US State Business Entity Databases: these databases do not go into much detail, but may be worth a look. See the Business Filings Databases page for a list and description of what's available from each state.

.

Return to Top

Non-Profits: For information on non-profits check the Guidestar database (free registration required)

Lists/rankings:

Inc 500 , Forbes Lists and Fortune Lists provide a variety of rankings and lists

Business First of Buffalo's Book of Lists (print only - Ref HC108 B8 B84) is a great resource for lists of local Buffalo Niagara companies (ie: largest, fastest growing, most inventive, women owned, more)

TableBase: Summary statistics from a variety of business sources

Blogs: many companies are blogging and what they say in their blogs can be useful for business researchers. For information about business blogging in general and for lists of companies that have business blogs, check out the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki and the Corporate Blogs List from The New PR Wiki.

Return to Top