01. Basic Information

1.1 Which exchange does it trade on (TSX, others)?
1.2 What is its stock symbol? (This is useful shorthand for searching)
1.3 Location of headquarters (address, phone, fax)?
1.4 URL of company web page?

In beginning research on a specific firm it is important to ensure you have the correct name for your target firm. Check its location and webpage to confirm. It is also important to determine what kind of a company your target is. This is crucial in that the sources of information are different for different types of firms. For example, companies that trade stock on one of the exchanges are governed by the SEC in the U.S. and SEDAR in Canada and are required to disclose information regularly which provides important primary documents for corporate researchers. If it trades on one of the exchanges find out its stock ticker symbol, which you can use to streamline searching. Nonprofits in the U.S. and charities in Canada have very different reporting requirements and different kinds of information are available.

There are a number of places to get started online to find this basic information including Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Google Finance. These sites provide slightly different information, but we would encourage you to get to know one of them well and use it as your first stop when conducting your research. Canada’s Business Registries also allows you to search for Canadian firms by industry.  It includes both publicly traded and privately held firms.

Spend some time and get to know the company web site. Typically, the information you are looking for is in the “Investors Section”, but become familiar with what information is available in all sections of their web site.

Paid Resources (Requires Subscription)

An excellent site for gathering basic information is Business Source Complete (you will need to select Business Source Complete from the list). Basic information is available on “company information” tab or look under “company profiles” for the more extensive Datamonitor report.

Mergent Market Atlas provides comprehensive information on privately held firms. You can find of detailed company data on over 50,000 US and foreign public companies, current and historical (past 15 years) firm descriptions, statistics, financial information and ratios, SEC filings and annual reports, ESG scores, economic time series data, industry analytics and reports, and more.