Five Public Sources Every Small-Cap Reader Should Bookmark
Before any newsletter, ours included, there is the public record. Five free sources for checking a company, a filing and anyone who offers you advice.
Start with the record, not the story
Before any newsletter, ours included, there is the public record. These five sources are free, need no account, and answer most of the questions worth asking about a small public company and about anyone who wants to sell you something.
1. SEC EDGAR
Every SEC-registered company's filings: annual and quarterly reports, current reports on Form 8-K, insider trades on Form 4, ownership stakes on Schedules 13D and 13G, and offering documents. EDGAR full-text search finds any phrase across filings made since 2001, which makes it the fastest way to see where a name, a customer or a risk has come up before.
2. The company's own investor-relations page
Press releases, presentation slides, call replays and the date of the next results. It is the company speaking for itself: useful for what it says, and for what it quietly stops saying from one quarter to the next.
3. FINRA BrokerCheck
Before you act on a broker's advice, look them up. BrokerCheck shows a broker's registrations, employment history and disclosures such as customer disputes and regulatory actions. It takes a minute.
4. The SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site
The same check for investment advisers: whether they are registered, their Form ADV brochure with fees and conflicts of interest, and any disciplinary history.
5. OTC Markets company pages
For companies quoted over the counter, OTC Markets shows the market tier (OTCQX, OTCQB or Pink), whether the company is current in its reporting, and its recent news. A company that has stopped reporting carries a different kind of risk from one that files every quarter.
And one more: the exchange calendar
US stock markets close on holidays and close early on a few afternoons a year, and the New York Stock Exchange publishes the calendar. Our earnings page and market clock use it, so the dates and times you see on First Look are New York time.
- EDGAR has every filing and a full-text search back to 2001.
- A company's IR page is its own voice: read it for what changes between quarters.
- Check brokers on FINRA BrokerCheck and advisers on the SEC's IAPD site before acting on their advice.
- For OTC companies, the tier and reporting status on OTC Markets matter as much as the news.
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