Finding the SEC Filings to Investigate Companies and the Investment Opportunities they Offer

Reviewing historical and company information is usually an important part of making an investment decision. Information contained in SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filings are an excellent source of such information. Generally they are more detailed than other sources, and as there are severe legal sanctions for material misstatements, the information is more reliable than most other sources.

If you don’t know the ticker symbol for the stock you’re interested in, simply Google-search the name of the company and you’ll find the ticker symbol somewhere on the first page.
Once you’ve got the sticker symbol, you’re ready to continue.

Check the markets to verify where they are trading.

In your bookmark options for your Internet browser, create a category (or folder) and bookmark the following pages:

The next step is to check the SEC filings.

The SEC maintains a database called EDGAR (Electronic Data-Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval). This database 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. It’s online and freely available to the public, and especially useful to us, because we can check all sorts of interesting facts about a company that’s a possible investment opportunity.

We can go directly to EDGAR ourselves at http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html, but it’s much easier to go directly to the exchange the company is trading on and look for the SEC filings there.

We’re going to use the company Amwest Imaging Inc. (AMWI) as an example. As a picture tells a thousand words, we going to go through each step visually to find the SEC filings.

OTCBB (OTC Bulletin Board)

Open http://otcbb.com and Type in “AMWI” and select “Filings” from the combo menu. Then hit the “Get Info” button.

And you’ll get a list of all the SEC filings.

OTC Markets Group Inc.

Open http://www.otcmarkets.com. Type “AMWI” and it’ll show you the company.

When you get this window, click the “Financials” tab which I’ve circled in red.

And once again, you’ll get a list of SEC filings.

NASDAQ

Open http://www.nasdaq.com and type “AMWI” in the box as shown and hit the enter key:

Then click on the tab called “SEC Filings”, which I’ve once again circled in red:

And you’ll end up with this box:

In regard to a full understanding of SEC filings – that’s a full course in itself, but the reports you’ll want for the juicy information are these:
8-K (used to notify investors of a significant new event like a new acquisition or departure of a CEO)
10-K (an annual report required by the SEC, that gives a comprehensive summary of a public company’s performance)
10-Q (a quarterly report designed to give a status of how a business is doing after three months (financial quarter) of operation)

What you’re looking for is information about the company (including contact information). If a company states in these reports that it is doing something, but is not, then it’s not only a bad pick – but possibly criminally liable.

With the information contained in these reports, you’ll get to know a lot more about any company than just by reading stock charts or following financial advice – and bear in mind that this is only part of a good investor’s research. It’s your money, your investment and we want you to go well-armed as enter the battlefield that is the stock market!