Identify and study your potential competitors, suppliers, corporate customers.

1. Before the annual reports

Find out whether your company is

• public or private?
• a subsidiary or joint venture?
• foreign-owned?

Check corporate structure, affiliation, and status in one of these:

• Directory of Corporate Affiliations (DANA Index Table H)
• Who Owns Whom series from Dun & Bradstreet

Or consult common business directories such as the following:

• Ward's Business Directory (DANA Reference Desk)
• Million Dollar Directory (DANA Index Table H)
• Hoover's Handbooks and Hoover's Online
• CompaniesOnline
• ComFind
• CorpTech Directory

2. Annual reports and others

• Annual reports to shareholders
• 10-K reports
• Other types of SEC reports
  • A Guide to SEC Corporate Filings from Disclosure, (at the Reference Desk) and the online version PDF file.
• Sources of SEC reports
  • Laser D/SEC from Disclosure
  • The SEC's EDGAR Website. Contains many kinds of SEC reports from 1994 onwards.
  • SEC reading rooms. Only 3 years of filings in Manhattan; complete filings only in Washington, DC.
  • Free EDGAR is a Website that is friendlier than the SEC's EDGAR site.
  • Reports on demand from Disclosure or other vendors.

3. "Annual report surrogates"

• Compact D/SEC on CD-ROM from Disclosure
• Moody's Manuals (DANA Index Table I)
• Standard & Poor's Corporation Records (DANA Index Table I)
• Value Line (DANA Reference Desk)
• Hoover's Handbooks or Hoover's Online

4. Sources of corporate changes

• Capital Changes Reporter from Commerce Clearing House (Shelved in DANA's Business Reference section)
• Predicasts F & S Index of Corporate Change (Ceased publication in 1993; DANA Index Table H)

5. Other resources

• Use the Stock and Commodity Exchanges Research Guide.
• Refer to the "Questions to consider while Researching a Company"
• Where appropriate, look for the company's Toxic Release Inventory report by facility name.