Gabelli Sophomore Consulting Challenge (CCIP): 3 - SEC, Financials & SBUs

In the United States, a public company is legally required to submit its financials to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in order to trade stock.

The SEC maintains a database of those financial records and makes them available for free to the public. The database is called EDGAR.

Private companies are not required to submit financials to the SEC, so their financials will be much more difficult to find.

Image of the website for EDGAR, the SEC database, with a red arrow pointing to the words "How to Research Public Companies."

Most business databases provide financial information (that they obtained from the SEC).  Your team should consider the supplemental content provided by a database when selecting information. Strategic business units (SBUs) are often reflected in the company's organizational structure or financial information.

• Examine the footnotes of financial records.
• Some databases provide tools that make it easier to compare companies with different fiscal years or currencies.
• Databases may also help you identify similar companies based on various criteria.
• Some databases provide more comprehensive financial information than others (additional ratios or breakdowns).
• Some business information providers hire analysts to create reports and projections based on their research.
• Some databases have AI-generated reports and projections.
• Some databases make it easier to download and manipulate financial data for use in spreadsheets, graphs, charts, and other data tools.
• Some databases have assistive technology embedded in the database to make the information provided more accessible.

A Partial List of Library databases that provide company financial information.