Business researchers rely on the SEC’s EDGAR website to access financial and other information on publicly traded U.S. companies. It’s a powerful tool that provides detail on company revenue, operating expenses, executive compensation, and more, particularly via company-provided quarterly and annual reports. But it’s not particularly pleasant to use. For some novice users, it can be downright impenetrable.
A website called Rank and Filed aims to make this public information more accessible to the public. It maps and graphs and visualizes data from EDGAR in an intuitive way. The site’s catchphrase - “SEC filings for humans” – serves as a funny little shot across the bow of the SEC. Librarians may find the site useful for business research or for sharing with their library users.
To explore companies by industry, use the block navigation elements in the middle of the page. The size of each block corresponds to the size of that industry. After you select an industry, subsequent block sizes correspond to size of exchange and company.
You can also browse by state or conduct a keyword search for individual companies. Knowing a sought-after company’s ticker symbol will make using the site a little easier.
Company information is displayed in a series of charts and graphs, which you can navigate through using the left-hand menu. You can browse SEC filings by date, see detailed financial filings, chart the influence of executives between different companies, research executive histories, and more. It’s very functional, once you get the hang of it. And it’s also quite beautiful, if you’re into this kind of thing.
