In reviewing Annual Reports /amnnouncements, there are an increasing number of sites available for purposes of retrieving the reports in pdf format.
The asx.com.au site is by far the quickest and up to date.
This site suffers, however, from the reports being in B&W scanned format (usually, the bulkiest and sometimes hardest to read of the pdf printouts).
Another good site for accessing the Annual reports is stocknessmonster.com.
This site is slower than the asx.com site (ie: 20 minute delay, etc). The documents on this site are in their original printed format (as opposed to scanned images). Therefore, the colour, resonance of detail, etc, is much crisper. Indeed, sometimes you can even find little tidbits in the reports which otherwise would have passed by. For example, in the LAK report, posted this afternoon, Chris Gilbey (CFO) included the following post-it note in the strategy section on page 4:
"Do we need to add a caveat regarding the US dollar? For instance could we say ' ….small operating profit provided that exchange rates remain in place at current levels' ”.
The final report included the following line:
"The Company’s business plan for the current financial year will see Lake with a small operating profit, under the assumption that the exchange rate remains relatively constant during the year".
This post-it comment was unable to be retrieved from the asx.com.au scanned image of the LAK report.
Most on-line brokers also have access to announcements from the ASX (some of which, such as InvestorWeb) are similar in nature to the Stocknessmonster site. The only disadvantage here is that more often than not, you will have to be a member of the service (ie: CommSEC, National online, InvestorWeb, etc) in order to access the announcements, whereas with StocknessMonster, you do not have to be a member.
Websites of individual companies are another place that investors can go to for purposes of retireving information. Timing, however, can be an issue here depending on how quickly it is before some websites are updated. More progressive companies though are now encouraging email alerts to announcements being made (ie: MRC, BUY, AUN, BHP, UEC, to name but a few). This is an encouraging innovation and allows for most investors to remain in touch with their respective comapnies and their interests.
There are many ways to manage and untangle the information flow that exists these days. The above represent but a few more examples of how much of today's information is readily available and accessible by all, providicng that you know where to look.
