What does that company actually do?
By InsiderAlpha · Published · Updated
Written from SEC primary filings, with every rule cited inline. Editorial standards.
Every public company answers this question, in its own words and under legal liability, in one place: Item 1 ("Business") of its annual 10-K. When a ticker you do not recognize turns up in an insider filing or a screen, start there, before any stock forum or screener. The routine below takes about ten minutes.
The 10-minute routine
- Minutes 1-2: the company page. Search the name or ticker on InsiderAlpha for the sector, size, price history, and insider activity in one place.
- Minutes 3-7: 10-K Item 1. Read how the company describes its segments, customers, and competition. If a business cannot be understood from its own Item 1, that is information too.
- Minute 8: headcount and scale. The 10-K's "Human Capital" disclosure carries the official employee count. UPS, for example, reports roughly 490,000 employees worldwide; Dutch Bros roughly 24,000, mostly in its shops. Quote the 10-K rather than a secondhand summary that may be years old.
- Minutes 9-10: what insiders are doing. Form 4 filings show whether its directors and officers have been buying or selling.
Follow insider buying without reading every filing
We read every Form 4 as it is filed and rank the insider purchases worth a look into a daily trading plan, so you do not have to open each filing yourself.
Free by email: highlights from the previous session's daily trading plan each market morning, plus a Friday roundup of the week's insider buying.
Basic reads each plan from the previous close, before the open. Compare plans or see the daily plan.
Worked examples from real searches
- What does Entegris do? Entegris makes the advanced materials, filters, and handling systems that keep semiconductor fabs free of contamination. It sells to chipmakers rather than making chips itself.
- What is FMC Corp? FMC is an agricultural sciences company: insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and crop-protection technology.
- What is Oklo? Oklo designs compact fast-fission power plants and aims to sell the power they generate rather than the reactors; it listed in 2024.
- What is Veralto? Veralto (VLTO) is Danaher's 2023 spin-off: water-quality testing and product-identification businesses.
- What is Rocket Companies? Rocket is the parent of Rocket Mortgage, America's largest retail mortgage originator, plus title and personal-finance arms.
- What is Global Payments? Global Payments processes card transactions for merchants and issuers worldwide.
- What is Hain Celestial? Hain Celestial sells organic and natural foods (Celestial Seasonings teas, Terra chips).
- What is Pool Corporation? Pool Corp is the world's largest wholesale distributor of swimming-pool supplies.
- What is Prospect Capital? Prospect Capital is a business development company (BDC) that lends to mid-market firms and pays out most income as dividends.
- What is Coupang? Coupang runs e-commerce and logistics in South Korea and has been NYSE-listed since 2021.
- What is RB Global? RB Global runs Ritchie Bros, the heavy-equipment auction marketplace, plus IAA salvage auctions.
- What is Deckers Outdoor? Deckers owns the UGG and HOKA footwear brands.
Why insider filings belong in basic research
The 10-K tells you what the business is. Form 4 filings tell you what the people running it have done with their own shares. If an unfamiliar industrial company shows cluster buying by its officers, that is a good reason to read its 10-K next. Each InsiderAlpha company page puts the business description next to the company's insider filings.
This article is informational and is not investment advice.