Business Information

The stated mission of the SEC is to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation. The SEC strives to promote a market environment that is worthy of the public's trust.

All public companies must comply with SEC regulations by regularly submitting reports that are available on the open web.

Use the Edgar Database to access reports.

Public companies will often post recent SEC filings or several years worth of annual reports for shareholders on their websites in the following areas:

• Investors

• Investor Relations

• Financials

EDGAR, the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system of the SEC.  It performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions by companies and others who are required by law to file forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

• EDGAR | Company Filings

  Free access to more than 21 million filings.

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

• The 10-K is a good place to be thorough. Especially check out the footnotes to the financials and the Management Discussion.
• ARS —the annual report (may be different than the glossy annual report on the company website;
• SC-13 changes in beneficial ownership,
• S-8 changes in employee benefit plans,
• DEF 14 proxy series. For a complete list of the forms and what they cover see http://www.sec.gov/about/forms/secforms.htm