How to Determine the Financial Health of a Publicly Traded Company
- 1). Access the SEC's EDGAR database. The 1933 Securities Act requires publicly traded companies to disclose truthful information about their financial earnings.
- 2). Search the EDGAR database by the company's name.
- 3). Search the company by its registration state if you have not decided which company to invest in. You can look through financial statements for all publicly registered companies within your state. A company's public prospectus becomes available through EDGAR quickly after it files one. The SEC attempts to make public information available on a real-time basis.
- 4). Download a company's Form 10-K, which provides audited annual or quarterly financial information. The Form 10-K contains an overview of a company's financial health and is the largest source of financial information that is publicly available. It contains a compilation of a company's assets, its products or services, its market share of the industry and the company's executive discussion of its financial condition.
- 5). Look at the dividend information provided on Form 10-K. If a company has not paid dividends to its investors, you can use the information as an indicator of its financial condition. EDGAR contains information for the previous two years. You might not be receiving dividend payouts within the next few years.
- 6). Review a company's Form 10-Q contains a company's unaudited information and information relating to the company's current economic condition. This form also contains information about pending legal proceedings. You might not want to invest in a company with several pending lawsuits because they could lead to judgments and settlement awards.
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