Corporations are one form of business entity. Other types of business entities include partnerships and limited liability companies. Corporations are classed according the Internal Revenue Service Code.  Larger corporations are typically created as C corporations while smaller corporations are typically created as S corporations.

Corporation can be publicly traded or privately held.  A publicly traded corporation is one that has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and whose shares are publicly traded on a stock exchange.  While privately held corporations may issue stock, those shares of stock are not publicly traded.  Privately held corporations are also known as closely held corporations.

Ticker Symbols

The shares of publicly traded companies are traded on stock exchanges.  The most well known stock exchanges in the United States are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq.  In order to be traded on these exchanges, the company needs to identified with a code.  These codes are called ticker symbols.  In addition to being useful for trading stock, the ticker symbol is also useful for conducting company research as that symbol uniquely identifies that company.  When doing research, the researcher should look to the resources search options to determine how to conduct research using the ticker symbol.   

While resources exist to research both public and private companies, there are far more resources available to research public companies. 

Although this research guide will focus on resources to research public companies, here are two databases that provide information on private companies.