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EDGAR ONLINE is the most cost-effective service if you need to monitor a few companies and you need to be alerted the moment those companies submit an EDGAR filing to the SEC. However, if you need to do any other searching, you are better off using the SEC's site or choosing one of the other value-added providers of EDGAR data.

Dedicated Service

Obviously, this kind of service is priced out of the range of most customers, but for investment bankers, law firms and other business people needing quick access to all EDGAR filings as they are accepted at the SEC, this type of service is worth the cost. Most vendors provide some value-added features to the feed before forwarding the data to subscribers, tagging search fields, such as company name, filing type, SIC code, ticker symbol, and so on. These services usually deliver the data via a dedicated phone line or satellite dish. The information is fed into a software package that stores or distributes the documents within an organization and enables users to search for data by a variety of criteria. Costs for direct feeds usually range from $15,000 to $40,000 and up for a yearly subscription; well worth it if hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake but a bit steep for the occasional searcher or for anyone who can wait 24 to 48 hours for the information.

What to Choose?

When the Taxpayer Assets Project first lobbied to make the SEC material available at no charge there was much hue and cry that the government was going to ruin the livelihood of those companies providing the information for a fee. Instead, it has spawned a new information industry niche in which both established players and newcomers are competing, both against each other and against the SEC's publicly-accessible site. Researchers are truly able to vote with their pocketbooks and take advantage of just the value-added services they need.

Search By:	Ticker Symbol	Company Name	Date	Form	SIC Code	Boolean Logic	How Current
SEC EDGAR [1]	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	24-hour delay
EDGAR at NYU	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	limited	24-hour delay
EdgarPlus (on LEXIS-NEXIS)	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	2-10 day delay
Moody's Company Data with EDGAR	yes [2]	yes	yes	yes	yes [2]	yes [2]	1 month delay; updated online
GSI LIVEDGAR	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	limited	real-time
EDGAR ONLINE	no	yes	no [3]	no	no	no	real-time

[1] SEC EDGAR offers plain string searching only--you are not searching by field.

[2] Available when searching the Company Data index, not when searching EDGAR filings directly.

[3] You can restrict your search to the last 90 days, since January 1, 1995, or since January 1, 1994.

REFERENCES

[2] Notess, Greg R. "SEC EDGAR and the Internet Town Hall." DATABASE 17, No. 4 (August 1994): p. 77-81.

[3] Bates, Mary Ellen. "Accessing SEC Filings via EDGAR." Information Advisor 6, No. 12 (December 1994): p. 1-3.

[4] Schwartz, Bonnie Fox. "EDGAR Update: the proliferation of commercial products." Legal Information Alert 15, No. 1 (January 1996): p. 1-5.

Mary Ellen Bates is an information broker and owner of Bates Information Services, providing research services to business. She is an active member of the Special Libraries Association and is President of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. She is the author of The Online Deskbook, published by Pemberton Press, and writes frequently for DATABASE, ONLINE, and ONLINE USER magazines.

Communications to the author should be addressed to Mary Ellen Bates, Bates Information Services, 1829 Mintwood Place NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202/332-2360; mbates@access.digex.net or http://www.access.digex.net/~mbates/.

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