“Why should I buy business information when it’s free from the SEC and available on so many sites?” This is a question we hear a lot from people interested in our subscriptions. What few people know is that the free information they see on sites such as Yahoo!, MSN, and Google, comes from EDGAR Online rather from the original source, which is the SEC. The same is true for the vast majority of public companies’ websites, showing up-to-date stock prices and other fundamental business data.
The SEC is far better at getting than giving information. Companies file reports directly into the SEC’s electronic database (EDGAR), but the free website is notoriously difficult to use, even if you know what you are looking for and have mastered the search tools.
So when you see free business data, chances are the website is fueled by EDGAR Online, and most certainly, it is simply summary fundamental data.
Any paid data service is actually selling “access and use” of data, rather than the data itself. The most basic services offer a lot of business information in a single site. Many offer alerts such as email and instant notifications to allow you to track companies or people.
EOL’s more advanced services include online tools and dashboards for working with the information, Analysts who prefer to work in Excel have interactive data feed directly into their desktop application and never have to go to another source to find and copy SEC data.
Many companies or researchers purchase EDGAR Online’s customized data feeds where “less is more”. EDGAR Online can cull specific information from our vast data repositories to provide only the pertinent information to the data feed customer.
EOL is the backbone of the financial industry, delivering business information to everyone from day traders who get their basic information from MSN.com, to companies that want to publish their changing stock prices online, to analysts using I•Metrix or Excel, to hedge fund analysts using their own “black box” analytical systems.
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