Publicly-traded by state?

June 10, 2009 7:43 AM

Where can I find a list of public companies, sorted by headquartered state?

I'm sure I'm going to feel like a moron when someone replies with www.stocksbystate.com or something, but a person I'm helping with research has asked me to find a list of all the publicly-traded companies headquartered in a handful of given states. The only lists I can find are at least three years old. I can parse the bankrupt ones, but not the new IPOs.

Does anyone know where to find a quick list sorted by state?

If I can cross-reference by profitability, then I'll dance at your wedding.

Bonus points if you preserve my ego by talking about how unimaginatively difficult my request it.

posted by jefficator to work & money (12 comments total)

Fortune Magazine's annual list of the 500 largest US corporations has this data.

At least, it has it by headquarters. It does not have it by where the corporation is incorporated. (In other words, Microsoft's headquarters is in Washington State but it is likely incorporated in Delaware.)

See here for more info.
posted by dfriedman at 7:47 AM on June 10

Fortune was a good starting point for me. Headquarters is the only real question. I'm hoping to find complete lists by state, though. Thank you for the tip!
posted by jefficator at 7:53 AM on June 10

I think Hoovers.com will let you do that with the free account. You won't be able to drill down into any company info, but I'm pretty sure you can generate the list with a free account.
posted by COD at 7:53 AM on June 10

Gosh Hoovers is so close. It will show me publically-traded companies and companies by state, but not publically-traded companies by state....unless I'm missing something. Am I? Thanks SO much for the help!!
posted by jefficator at 7:59 AM on June 10

There's a database called Reference USA that might do this. Looks like the public version only lets you get 50 results per search, but a lot of public and academic libraries have access to this if you have borrowing privileges with them.
posted by marxchivist at 8:08 AM on June 10

Are you affiliated with an academic institution? If so you may be able to get access to a Bloomberg terminal which should also allow you to get this type of data.
posted by dfriedman at 8:09 AM on June 10

Reference USA is really what you are looking for. It's great. When I used to use it to do similar things at the library it was great and you could download the data in a variety of formats to a disk or email it to yourself. No idea where you are, but consider checking your local libraries to see if they have it.
posted by jessamyn at 8:18 AM on June 10

Thanks everyone! I will try to find out whether I have access to Reference USA!
posted by jefficator at 8:35 AM on June 10

I can run a list of publicly traded companies, sorted by state, with my company Hoovers account. However, I can't download the list without an even higher level account. I can only see 100 results per page, so I'd have to individually download 222 HTML pages to help you. They were smart enough to not put the page size selector in the URL, so I can't hack it either.

So Hoovers won't work unless you can find somebody with better access than I have. I think we have the "professional" account.
posted by COD at 11:21 AM on June 10

So I've called all the local libraries--including colleges and universities--and I can't find a subscription. I even called Harvard Library and they don't have one.

I don't suppose anyone can call in a favor for me at their place of work?

Thanks so much, COD, for trying. I'm going to mention Hoovers to my boss.
posted by jefficator at 1:45 PM on June 10

ARGH!

Hoovers is PRECISELY what I need...but my boss won't pay for it! ("$3500 for a subscription? That's what I pay YOU for!") Woe! Misery!
posted by jefficator at 3:02 PM on June 10

Are you in Boston? Because BPL has ReferenceUSA, and that's exactly what you need. Looks like you can log in remotely with a BPL card.

When you're in:

1. Click "Search" by US Businesses in the
2. Click the "Custom Search" tab
3. Check the boxes for "State" under "Geographic" and "Public-Private Companies/Stock Exchange" under "Ownership".
4. Click "Create Search"
5. Choose your state(s)
6. Check the box for "Public Companies" (you can leave the checkboxes for the various exchanges blank)
7. Click "Search Now"
8. Profit?

Unfortunately, the only $ figures they have are estimated annual sales, and you can't make that number display in the search results page (you can see it when you click on a record for more details). When you download, however, sales is one of the columns and you can sort/group/etc on that.

Your library may have restrictions on the number of downloads per session, which makes for some logging out and back in in order to paste together all of the information, but it's not too bad.
posted by clerestory at 8:26 PM on June 10