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 BUSINESS RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET

Some of these databases are free and some require a fee. Some are subscription databases and others allow you to purchase documents as needed with a credit card.

COMPANY INFORMATION

Researching Companies Online 
            
http://www.learnwebskills.com/company/index.html
    This business research tutorial presents a step-by-step process for finding free company and industry information on the World Wide Web.

Corporate Information
   
       http://corporateinformation.com/

Dun & Bradstreet (fee-based)
          http://www.dnb.com/  
    This site offers: Business Background Reports, Supplier Evaluation Reports and Global Seek Reports for companies outside the United States.

Edgar 
            
http://www.edgar-online.com/ 
    Edgar is the source for up-to-minute SEC electronic corporate filings and related business intelligence tools, 144 Insider Transaction filings,
    EDGAR Online People and EDGAR and

EDGAR Online Glimpse. http://edgar.sec.gov/cgi-bin/srch-edgar/

This is an index to 1994 to Present EDGAR documents stored on this server.

Free Edgar: http://www.freeEdgar.com/

EdgarScan http://edgarscan.pwcglobal.com/servlets/edgarscan

EdgarScan is an interface to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval (SEC EDGAR) Filings. EdgarScan pulls filings from the SEC's servers and parses them automatically to find key financial tables and normalize financials to a common format that is comparable across companies.

10K Wizard http://www.10kwizard.com/

Real time filings, full text search, and downloads for free.

Federal Trade Commission  http://www.ftc.gov/

Available: Leases, Publications, Consumer Protection, Formal Actions, Opinions & Activities, Regional Offices, Antitrust/Competition, and more.

Hoover's Online (free and fee) http://www.hoovers.com/

This site offers narrative company descriptions, information on competitors, rankings, subsidiaries, selected news stories, and more. Registered users can click on Company Profile, Financials, or News, to get more detailed information.

Infonautics http://www.infonautics.com/

Contains links to Company Information, Investor Relations, Services, Employment, Services, etc.

Kiplinger http://www.kiplinger.com/

Contains links to Personal Finance, Business Forecasts, Publications, etc.

Network Solutions WhoIs http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois/

Look up a domain name

Nexis http://www.nexis.com/research/

Web service for news and business information. 30,000 news, business, and legal information sources

Consumersearch.com  http://www.consumersearch.com/www/

Product reviews from hundreds of online sites and print publications. It includes consumer appliances, computers, software, CDs, books, and vehicles. About 25% are full-text articles.

Quicken http://www.quicken.com/

Track the Market, Pick Top Funds, Small Business, Find a Mortgage, Insurance Quotes, etc.

Small Business Administration http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/

Contains links to Starting, Financing, Expanding, Freedom of Information, Disaster Assistance, Regulatory Fairness, and more.

Thomas Register http://www.thomasregister.com/

Search for manufacturers of industrial products and services.

Wall Street ResearchNet http://www.wsrn.com/

WetFeet.com http://www.wetfeet.com/asp/home.asp

Interviews about the culture, opportunities, and recruiting process and profiles of company's history, business, profitability, and more. Find out salaries, job requirements, and more, for dozens of industries and careers.

HOW TO READ FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Guides to Understanding Financial Statements http://www.ibm.com/investor/financialguide/

This guide provides basic introduction to reading the financial statement in a company’s annual report.

INDUSTRY INFORMATION

Stat-USA http://www.stat-usa.gov/

This is a service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is the site for the U.S. business, economic and trade community, providing authoritative information from the Federal government.

EDGAR Online IPO Express http://www.edgar-online.com/ipoexpress/supersearch.asp

Initial Public Offering filings give good background information.

FreeEdgar http://www.freeedgar.com/

Search filings by company name or ticker symbol or SIC codes.

U.S. Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/econ97.html

FedStats http://www.fedstats.gov/

Statistical Abstracts of the U.S. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-us.html

These sites host a comprehensive index of industry resources.

Business.com http://www.business.com/

CEO Express http://www.ceoexpress.com/

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION

Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce http://www.export.gov/comm_svc/

This site links to market research and the National Trade Data Bank, a compilation of more than 130 government databases. For a fee of $150. /year, there is unlimited Internet access to a broad range of market research reports and studies.

Department of Commerce International Trade Administration http://www.ita.doc.gov/

This site supplies U. S. businesses with easy access points to trade information services provided by the ITA and the Federal Government. It links to Regions and Countries, Industrial Trade Information Center, Industries, Trade Statistics, Export Assistance Centers, trade Compliance Center, Import Administration and more.

Dialog Corporation (fee-based) http://www.dialog.com/

This database links to international business and finance, company intelligence, company profiles, company financial data, and company news.

Dun & Bradstreet http://www.dnb.com/

Reports will provide basic company information, SICs, number of employees, and parent company information.

Dow Jones  (fee-based) http://www.dowjones.com/corp/index.html

This database is similar to Dun & Bradstreet.

Eurochambres http://www.eurochambres.be/

The Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry currently has 1,200 members in more than 30 countries. It is a very useful source of business information, which also makes available numerous publications.

LEXIS-NEXIS (fee-based) http://www.lexis.com/lncc/sources/libcont/

This site reviews the individual libraries and their content for free. The major libraries include Company, Market Research Reports, and World. The collection is also divided into regional country collections. These libraries contain numerous files with international company financial information, international market research information, and international news.

U.S. State Department Background Notes http://www.state.gov/www/background_notes/

These notes offer additional information on U.S. relations with the country, history, and travel advisories.

World Factbook http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

An annual which covers most countries of the world, each entry includes a map, statistics on the population and the size of the country, descriptions of natural resources, and overviews of the country’s government, economy, and export and imports.

DIRECTORY INFORMATION

If you don’t know where to start searching, here are lists prepared by other organizations, libraries, or universities on a variety of topics. They include free and fee sites.

BUBL Information Service http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link/world/index.html

This service allows you to select a country, then provides a description of the information available at that site.

Export & International Business Sources http://www.exportall.net/

This site combines the best export and international business sources.

MSU_CIBER http://globaledge.msu.edu/ibrd/ibrd.asp

This site allows you to choose a category from the index that contain a list of sites with business information.

World Pages http://www.worldpages.com/

This business directory adds Canada and also includes specialized mini-directories of legal, government, automotive, entertainment, restaurant, and travel resources.

MISCELLANEOUS

American Chambers of Commerce Abroad http://www.uschamber.org/International/Chambers+Abroad/default.htm

This site contains associations of business executives interested in U.S. foreign trade and investment.

Asian Wall Street Journal: Asian Wall Street Journal

Electronic Embassy http://www.embassy.org/    

This site provides information on all the foreign embassies in Washington, D.C.

World Trade Organization http://www.wto.org/ 

World Chambers Network http://www.worldchambers.com/SSC/index.htm

NEWS AND JOURNALS

American City Business Journals http://www.amcity.com/

A site for the online editions of more than 3 dozen local business publications.

Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/

BusinessWire www.businesswire.com/

A service paid for by companies that distributes corporate background and press releases information.

CNNfn http://cnnfn.cnn.com/

CNN’s financial news.

CBS MarketWatch http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/newsroom.htx

Economist via Asia-Pacific (U.K.) http://www.asia-pacific.com/

Financial Times http://news.ft.com/

This site includes current and archival news.

Forbes http://www.forbes.com/

Fortune http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/

PRNewswire http://www.prnewswire.com/

A press release distribution service similar to Businesswire.

Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition http://www.wsj.com/

Research Guide-4 
June 4, 1999 
Sept  28, 2004  revised 
Mora Prestinary


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