20 August 2003. QuestNet, a financial research firm, offers this useful EDGAR research tool. Search EDGAR documents from 1994 to present by CIK code, ticker symbol, company name or keyword. The keyword feature utilizes Boolean and proximity connectors (e.g., (mars near(15) candy not music)). This is a subscription-based resource, but researchers receive a KWIC peek at the placement of search terms as well as bibliographic information about matching filings. The site also offers an alert feature for subscribers. 22 October 2003. Lyle Roberts, a partner with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's securities litigation group, comments on class actions brought on behalf of investors against companies. The Weblog also links to useful Web sites covering securities law, statistics and select cases. The RSS news feed provides headlines and partial commentary. 24 October 1998. Revised 29 October 2007. 10k Wizard is a commercial service that makes public company filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission from 1994 to present available for searching, display and downloading. You may search by a variety of criteria, including ticker symbol, company name, keyword, form type, date and more.
Using an indicator you slide into the desired position, you may display initial search results in 3 formats, which give you incrementally more information about each matching document. You may choose to display individual documents as "hits in context," (shows where keywords appear) "item outline," (like a table of contents) "page outline," (shows page numbers) "exhibits," "header," or "spreadsheets." You may increase the number of words that display in context to 100-200 words. Moreover, there are several options for printing, saving or e-mailing a document, which include various file formats.
Regarding keyword searching, the service made a number of recent enhancements. You may now search all words, numerical values, punctuation and symbols. You may search within a set of results. 10k Wizard also supports numerous advanced commands and connectors, including, but not limited to, proximity connectors, nesting, stemming, and "at least" (number of times the keyword appears in a filing).
10k Wizard offers other databases in addition to newer EDGAR filings. For example, it contains an index of SEC filings back to 1966. You will also find no action and interpretative letters, federal securities regulations, SEC forms, and more.
Please note: Javascript must be enabled. 17 June 2004. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Thomson Financial offer this resource for issuers and investors. It provides news and information about ADRs. "An ADR is a dollar-denominated negotiable certificate that represents ownership of shares in a non-U.S. company." The ADR Universe database offers company name, ticker, CUSIP, SEDOL number, ratio, country and industry sector. Additional information is provided about select companies. Other portions of the site provide market commentary, white papers, the S&P ADR Index, annual reports and more. 4 March 2004. The Bond Market Association provides this 13-page (in PDF format) guide to investing in municipal bonds. Written for consumers, it explains what they are, the tax advantages, how to interpret yields, market risks and more. The guide also contains tables of yield equivalents and state taxation as well as a glossary of municipal bond terms. 20 March 2001. Revised 17 April 2008. The National Futures Association (NFA) offers a database of regulatory actions, NFA arbitration awards, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reparations cases against individuals and firms. Search by NFA ID number, individual or firm name, or pool name. Data under regulatory actions includes the contributor (e.g., CBOT, NYFE), case number, action type, effective date, violation(s) and penalty/fine. 5 December 2003. The Bloomberg news service reports on markets, economies, companies and other topics daily. Its news stories appear in newspapers around the world. The Web site provides a mix of free and fee-based information. Using it requires free registration. A special feature lets you find current stock information by entering a ticker symbol. Another search feature helps you find the ticker symbol by company or mutual fund name. 20 August 2003. The British Columbia Securities Commission provides access to its databases containing information about exempt distributions, insider trading, registered dealers/advisors, cease trade orders and decisions, reporting issuers in default and public filings (foreign issuers and notices of intention to distribute securities). Some of the databases contain full-text documents; other provide information about the filings. 3 April 2002. CAROL stands for Company Annual Reports Online. After registering (free) with the site, obtain access to company annual reports from Asia, Europe and the United States. Search by industry sector or browse by company name. CAROL indexes annual reports available online. It does not store these reports on its own server. Therefore, you will find reports in a variety of formats (mostly PDF) and covering a variety of years.
CAROL also links to stock exchanges around the world and provides a news update service covering IPOs, mergers & acquisitions, and other events typically the subject of securities filings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers Consumer Price Indexes, news releases, reports and fact sheets. 4 June 2002. The Web site enables browsing or searching (by ticker symbol or pre-established category) company press releases. For example, browse all current legal-related news involving public companies, or search for news about a specific public company. Behind the scene, the business serves chief financial officers, investor relations officers and other managers of publicly-held corporations, who want to disseminate their company's financial information. 16 December 1999. Find various tools for converting currency including one that converts current exchange rates and one that provides historical data. 17 September 1999. The Daily Deal offers breaking news about deals in progress, analyses of emerging trends, people and institutional profiles, valuation and other financial projections, information about the financial, legal, tax and accounting structures of current deals, commentary concerning deal strategies, and more. Free access includes daily top news stories as well as other perks. On the day I reviewed the site, for example, I found information about new bankruptcies filings for public and private companies, current M&A transactions, IPOs, distressed securities, and more. 15 December 1999. The North American Securities Administrators Association offers this directory of state securities regulators. Find contact names, addresses and telephone numbers. 7 March 1999. Revised 29 January 2007. Search the Securities and Exchange Commission's database of public company filings. The search engine enables querying the full text of filings from the last four years. You may also access mutual fund filings. 10 February 2005. This commercial alert service lets you create custom RSS feeds by company name, ticker symbol or keyword in the company name. It also provides several free feeds for monitoring new initial public offerings (IPOs), quarterly reports, annual reports or insider trading filings. EDGAR Online offers company name and ticker symbol searching to retrieve SEC EDGAR filings. Nice features include the ability to retrieve a list of today's filings, automatic search features for obtaining company news, filings mentioning individuals by name (For example, search the ticker AMZN and then click on people to find Jeffrey Bezos. Click on his name to obtain other filings mentioning him.), sources for additional research, and more. Researchers seeking information about IPOs should check out the site's IPO Express. 23 April 2002. Ameritrade offers this resource, which explains financial concepts in easy-to-understand language. The first chapter begins with "What is stock?" and "Why do companies issue stock?" Other chapters cover security and analysis research, debt securities, mutual funds, investment strategies, and retirement planning. 20 January 2005. A Guide for Investors: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) publishes this guide on the disclosure of executive compensation. Its purpose is to help researchers locate compensation information in company reports. It defines several types of executive compensation, what is filed with the SEC, and where you can find the information. The guide also contains a glossary of relevant terms. 16 December 1999. The Federal Reserve Board offers Release H.15 on selected interest rates. It provides daily interest rates for U.S. Treasury and private money market and capital market instruments. 13 September 2000. This Xenon Labs utility converts 180 different currencies from over 250 geographic locations. According to Tourbus, September 12, 2000, Xenon's sources are "live, real-time rate feeds containing data from foreign exchange markets around the world." Disclosure Incorporated, developers of EDGARPlus® (above), provides this amalgamation of commercial databases. The Filings database offers real-time access to EDGAR documents, images of annual reports and international company filings, and an index of paper filings dating back to 1968. Research offers company and industry investment research reports from brokerage firms, investment banks and independent research organizations worldwide. Researchers may also obtain full-text articles or summaries from major newspapers, newswires, and trade or business journals. 20 January 2005. The Securities and Exchange Commission publishes this annotated guide to resources on insider trading. It includes references to basic information on the topic, relevant forms and rules, as well as information on filing a complaint. 4 March 2004. This 50-page guide (in PDF format) by the Investment Company Institute explains mutual funds and the basic principles of investing. Written for consumers, it discusses several types of mutual funds and their advantages. It outlines how to establish an investment plan and how to conduct investment-related research. The guide also contains information about best practices and a glossary of mutual fund terms. 15 December 1999. Yahoo!Finance offers historical U.S. stock quotes back to 1970! Find historical quotes for U.S., Canadian and other foreign exchanges, mutual and money market funds, corporate bonds and precious metals. 12 September 2002. Globe Business Publishing Ltd, a publishing company that specializes in information for the global legal community, offers a deals database. Search for deals announced since 1 January 2001. Search by law firm, lawyer, deal type, company, industry, type of work (e.g., banking, commercial property, etc.), value, date, or keywords to find a brief description of the deal, companies involved, the legal advisors, the value of the deal, and the date announced. 4 March 2004. Written for consumers, this Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guide discusses the advantages and disadvantages of mutual fund investing. It explains how mutual funds work, how fees and taxes effect your returns over time and common pitfalls. The guide concludes with information about filing a complaint. It also contains a glossary of mutual fund terms. 8 February 2002. The Web site of The Bond Market Association offers historical trading data for municipal bonds, as well as daily corporate bond transactions and composite treasury reports. 26 September 2001. The Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators make information about investment advisor firms available. Search by full or partial company name, IARD/CRD number or SEC number to find a business' primary name, alternate names, IARD/CRD number, SEC number, address, and a link to its Form ADV (application for investment advisor registration). The application then discloses additional useful information; for example, whether the business has assets under management of $25 million or more, its state of incorporation, number of employees, number of clients, and more. 20 January 2005. This section of the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Web site refers researchers to investment related resources. Find answers to common questions, full-text publications and brochures, calculators, advice and resources for investigating brokers or advisers, resources for certain types of professionals (e.g., librarians, teachers), statistics and more. You can browse or search this section of the SEC Web site. Need to know immediately who's making an initial public offering? Check out IPO Express! Obtain a list of upcoming or recent filings. Read key segments of the filing. Retrieve IPOs by industry. Or read IPO news. These are just a few things IPO Express offers. 27 March 2001. Find a database of profiles for emerging companies and their venture investors. Click on "advanced search" to find useful search criteria including searching by U.S. region or zip code, foreign country, number of employees, investment state, and more. The advanced feature also provides for browsing the database. Profiles include company contact information, industry sectors, brief business description, year business started, type (e.g., public or private), stage of development, investment amount, investor, and management team profiles (i.e., name, email, phone, education). 5 January 2000. Jefren offers select forms from its 12-volume publication, Proxy Statements: Strategy and Forms. Downloading them requires an unzipping utility and the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This commercial site by Global Securities Information, Inc. offers full-text searching of EDGAR documents and improved formatting for downloading, printing, or displaying online. LivEDGAR provides real time access to EDGAR filings, an index of paper filings by non-EDGAR companies, and automatic searches for commonly requested information like poison pill actions. 4 March 2004. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) offers a calculator for estimating and comparing the costs of owning mutual funds. "Mutual fund costs take a big chunk out of any investor's return. That's why it's important for investors to know what costs they are paying, and which cost structure is best for them." Use of the calculator requires a JavaScript-enabled browser. 13 September 2004. Revised 18 April 2008. The National Association of Securities Dealers provides this resource for obtaining information about the professional background, registration/license statuses and conduct of NASD registered firms and their registered brokers. The information comes from the Central Registration Depository (CRD) as reported on the industry registration/licensing forms--Form U-4 and Form BD. Review items 10-12 in the site's Terms of Use for details about what will be disclosed. Note the limitation, which states information is provided on individuals "for two years after the termination of the individual's NASD registration." Information on firms is provided indefinitely. According to criticism of the upgraded system published in the San Francisco Chronicle, information about "old complaints ... are limited to the ones that were archived starting Monday [19 March 2007], the implementation date of the BrokerCheck upgrade." 30 January 2002. NASD Dispute Resolution, Inc. offers the text of the NASD's rules governing the areas of arbitration and mediation. 24 July 2000. NASD Dispute Resolution, Inc., a subsidiary of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. operates this Web site devoted to resolving disputes between investors and their securities firms and between member firms. Find forms, rules and procedures, and publications like the Arbitrator's Manual, the Arbitrator's Reference Guide, and others. 31 May 2000. This site offers breaking news including market reports, current IPOs and deleted companies, sector industry reports and other expert opinions, indexes and statistics from 1971 to present, and background information about NASDAQ. Also find a search tool for locating NASDAQ companies by name, symbol, state or zip code. The tool enables sorting by name, symbol, or market value. 21 February 2002. Numa Financial Systems Ltd. offers this acronyms dictionary of financial derivatives. 29 January 2007. Written by legislative attorney, Michael V. Seitzinger, this CRS report provides an outline of major federal securities laws. It covers the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Insider Trading Sanctions Act of 1984, the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Enforcement Act of 1988, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. 1 November 2005. This brief guide by the Securities & Exchange Commission suggests resources for checking out brokers and investment advisors. As the guide mentions, the state securities regulator for the relevant jurisdiction might be the best source of disciplinary information. The guide ends with recommended questions you should ask before you make an investment. 1 November 2005. The Securities & Exchange Commission's guide on "pump and dump" schemes explains what they are and provides tips for avoiding such scams. 9 May 2001. RR Donnelly Financial offers information for securities lawyers and researchers. Find a monthly newsletter that reports on developments in corporate and securities law, commentary on corporate and Internet-related legal issues, links to securities laws and regulations, links to SEC staff guidance documents, and information about EDGAR. 10 February 2005. Information management company askSam offers a free downloadable database containing the text of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. You need askSam database software or the free askSam Viewer to browse or search the database. It's compatible with Windows versions 95 and higher, including Windows NT. 17 June 2004. Securities Litigation Watch introduced list during May 2004. It "lists the top 50 plaintiffs' law firms ranked by the total dollar amount of final securities class action settlements occurring in 2003 in which the law firm served as lead or co-lead counsel." Milberg Weiss tops the list. 12 September 2002. Find fast, free, no-registration-required access to EDGAR filings. Search by ticker symbol, company name, or form and date. NOTE: Queries search the EDGAR document header information, not the full-text of the public filing.
Search-SEC.com also provides various reports, including monthly public utility and real estate reports, recent SEC trading suspensions, small business filings, an IPO report, and more. Researchers may stay up-to-date with the filings of specific companies by using the company's email alert service. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) offers search access to litigation releases, administrative orders, ALJ decisions, Commission opinions, and trading suspensions. The site offers no information about the completeness or coverage of the database. 2 October 2001. Revised 28 February 2003. Aspen Publishers offers a compilation of securities related documents in PDF format. These include forms, regulations, and statutes. To find the free links, go to the bottom of the page. 29 January 2007. With the tagline, "a Free Real Time Insider Trading Monitoring System," SecForm4 gives researchers easy access to current and historical insider trading information. Search by ticker symbol or CIK (unique EDGAR identifier), or browse by current transactions. Once the results display, you may then follow hyperlinks to retrieve, for instance, all transactions related to a person. You can also view the filed document online. 27 February 2002. San Francisco-based Finnegan O'Malley & Company Inc. offers this database containing public filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission (EDGAR) and the Canadian Securities Administrators (SEDGAR). A few things set it apart from other free EDGAR databases. For example, it includes filings from Canadian public companies. It offers several navigational features that link related filings and facilitate wading through voluminous documents.
It also provides more search options. Rather than limiting searchers to queries comprised of a company name, ticker symbol, or CIK code, SECInfo enables name searching. The system further identifies whether the name corresponds to a company official or agent, or a group. Searchers may also query the system by industry, SIC code, zip code or other location data, and more. SECnet, by CCH Washington Service Bureau, comprises several commercial databases. Filings offers an index of EDGAR and paper filings back to 1966. Full-Text serves as an interface to EDGARPlus. It permits searching using the same connectors and syntax as allowed by Lexis/Nexis. Registrations provides descriptions of 1933 Act registration statements. Topical invokes automatic searching of pre-set subjects. No-Action offers full-text search and retrieval of all no-action letters released since 1971. Watch allows researchers to track filings and receive periodic notification about certain filings. 5 September 2003. Created and maintained by the library staff at Stanford Law School, this site offers the full text of complaints, briefs, court decisions and other filings dealing with federal class action securities fraud litigation. It also provides related news headlines, reports (statistics), articles, information about settlements and more. You may browse by company name (other indexes available). Or search the database by litigant name, ticker symbol, court or date (month and year). Google powers a site search feature for finding filings by keyword. Revised 14 November 2003. Created by Congress during 1970, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) works to restore funds to investors with assets in bankrupt or otherwise financially troubled brokerage firms. It provides information about filing claims and protecting yourself against fraud as well as new, open and closed SIPC cases. Mark J. Astarita, a New York securities attorney and partner in the law firm of Gusrae Kaplan & Bruno offers this Web treatise on U.S. securities law. Specifically, it covers arbitration, brokers, investors, corporate finance, and securities law and compliance. Created and maintained by The Center for Corporate Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law, the Deskbook offers the text of major securities laws and regulations. 22 October 2003. Bruce Carton, Executive Director of ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services) Securities Class Action Services (SCAS) and former SEC staff attorney, comments on developments involving securities litigation or securities enforcement. In addition to commentary, this Weblog links to a SCAS news alert service, free sources of securities or market data, securities laws, court opinions and more. The site offers an RSS news feed. 4 June 2002. SEDAR is the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval. Search for filings by public companies or mutual funds. Also obtain company and mutual fund profiles. Profiles link directly to all the business' filings available in the database.
Another feature lets researchers retrieve new filings of various types, including, takeover bids, press releases, and more. 13 August 2003. Continuing professional education provider SmartPros Ltd. offers a mix of free and commercial resources for accounting professionals. Find news and commentary (also available for free by email) on a variety of accounting issues, including new tax law, financial fraud, the economy and corporate accountability. Other resources include continuing education materials (fee-based), a glossary of accounting terms, full-length articles with a free searchable archive, job bank and more. 19 November 2001. Revised 1 April 2005. Search a company name to find its stock transfer agents. Searching is free after submitting your name and email address. The information provided includes the stock transfer company's name, address and telephone number.
Other resources available at the site include contact information for state secretaries of state, escheatment offices, and securities regulators, as well as a financial glossary, a state-by-state chart summarizing fiduciary powers, and resources for finding information about stock certificates when the transfer agent is no longer in business.
For securities professionals, the site publishes transfer agent rules, regulatory information about escheatment and Rule 144 (disclosure rule), forms, security industry regulations, and other information.
30 May 2001. It in own words, "TechAgreements is a research tool for those looking for model legal forms and competitive information on publicly disclosed deals in the Internet, Computer and Telecom industries." Search by company name or keyword, or browse agreements by industry.
The site offers a brief summary of the agreement including the date it was signed and number of pages. You pay per agreement to access the full-text. TechAgreements.com helpfully supplies a line item for entering billing references.
In addition to offering investment market news and commentary, Wall Street City provides an interface to researching public companies. Enter a ticker symbol to retrieve one of many available reports. To search by other data like company name or industry, click on Quotes or Portfolio in the top menu and then follow the link for "symbol." 27 February 2001. This site offers a database of information about deals involving European companies (since August 1997) and United Kingdom companies (since January 1999). Search by company name, advisor, industry, deal type, time period, or country; or create more complex queries using advanced search features. Data returned includes deal type, dates of announcement and expected completion, target company (including country and industry), bidder company (including country and parent info), vendor, and comments. This is a free database that requires registration.
Zephus also offers an email alert service for tracking the activities of certain companies.
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