The long awaited regulations from the SEC outlining which firms must file with XBRL tags (generally the largest 500 that follow GAAP) and when (end of 2nd quarter)  have just been published by the SEC. You can link to the full report in PDF here, but the relevant information begin on page 39.

The surprise is that the final decision here was to exempt firms from having to tag their narratives: eg the management discussions, executive compensation etc. From a researcher’s standpoint, that’s too bad, as this means less potential for precision searching. However the SEC says it may revisit this, and/or make this kind of tagging “optional”. We’re doing a full report on sources for searching both the EDGAR and XBRL tagged filings in the March and April issues of The Information Advisor.

The word from FT.com that its information page on companies is now free just came into my email box.

This can be a great source for international M&A activity, IPOs’ and more. The articles remain free for 24 hours after publication. To get to the free company information page from FT.com, link here.