This web guide is intended to be both an introduction for those unfamiliar with EDGAR, and the use of EDGAR documents in business research, and a guide to allow experienced EDGAR researchers to search more effectively.

What does EDGAR stand for? Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system.

What does EDGAR do? EDGAR is the United States Securities and Exchange Commission's program that allows for the Electronic filing, validation, indexing, and storage of documents by organizations that are required to file with the SEC. For more information regarding the EDGAR program see this web page that is maintained by the SEC: http://www.sec.gov/edgar/aboutedgar.htm

Why should I be interested in EDGAR or SEC filings? Edgar filings represent an enormous amount of information available to everyone regarding most publicly owned corporations whose securities are traded in the United States. As of 1996 all corporate SEC filings were required to be submited electronically through EDGAR. Some of the information that is available in SEC filings include corporate charters and/or bill of rights, shareholders agreements, information regarding poison pills, as well as the profits and losses of a corporation. Furthermore SEC filings lay out the compensation packages of corporate executives, list all subsidiaries of a corporation, and show who the major investors in a corporation are. SEC filings can also shed light on what areas corporations are concentrating on (in business and in research), what new innovative products are on the horizon, and how that corporation thinks those innovations will affect the future (of the corporation and the industry). Some of the questions that can be answered by referring to SEC filings are: how much does Ralph Lauren make each year, what is the address of Coca Cola, how many shares of Microsoft does Bill Gates own, what companies are looking in to searching for oil in Alaska? As you can see information obtained from SEC filings can be useful for many purposes, including investment research, general industry research, job searches, and personal or professional curiosity.

What are the different types of EDGAR documents?

Description of SEC Forms- The SEC's Description of SEC Forms page is a great primer that explains the function of each SEC filing for both beginning and more experienced SEC researchers.This is a nice page providing a short description of the information contained in most common filings. Because this page is put out by the SEC I would consider the information on this page to be the definitive filing descriptions.

Securities Law Forms Available on the Web- a great website that provides basic general information about each of the different types of filings and provides a link for each form which gives the directions necessary to create each form. This is very helpful for beginning EDGAR searchers, because it allows for a better understanding of the purpose and content of the various filings. This page has not been updated in several years, but these filings have not changed any either so this is not a great detriment. The site was compiled by a securities attorney and is only one part of a larger commercial securities law web site.

Now that I know what is in EDGAR documents how do I find them?

When searching for EDGAR documents there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, every EDGAR document is available on the Internet for free from the Securities and Exchange Commission's web site. That is the good news; if you know exactly what filing you need and it was filed electronically you can download it and print it out for free. The bad news is that the SEC only began making companies file electronically in 1996 and that companies were gradually phased in to EDGAR in the years approaching 1996. As I said before if you know exactly what filing you are looking for and it was done in the last couple of years finding it is no problem. If you do not have a specific filing in mind, say you are looking for a information on a company in a certain industry, based in a certain state, that has filed an 10-K which includes the executive compensation figures, it may be necessary to do a more advanced search, or perhaps even a full text search. This is not possible using the free EDGAR database available from the SEC. Because the EDGAR database is public information there are many companies that have attempted to repackage this information, and these companies have created much more sophisticated search interfaces. Unfortunately the EDGAR products that are able to do this type of searching are generally not free. Finally, if in the course of your research you discover you need a document filed before EDGAR was implemented, it will be necessary to contact a clearinghouse to track down the document. I will discuss all three methods of obtaining SEC filings in more detail in the following sections.

• FREE EDGAR SEARCH DATABASES
• FEE-BASED (VALUE ADDED) EDGAR SEARCH DATABASES
• NON EDGAR FILINGS RETREIVAL