Identifiers & company lists

List companies by sector and industry (SIC code)

Find every SEC filer in an industry by SIC code, page through the results and narrow them to companies listed on NYSE or Nasdaq today.

Every company that files with the SEC is assigned a four digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code: 3674 for semiconductors, 7372 for prepackaged software, 2834 for pharmaceutical preparations. The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance uses it to route filings to the right review office. You can use it to build an industry peer list in a few calls.

/v1/mapping/sic returns every filer with a given SIC code, 100 per page. The list covers every EDGAR filer that has been assigned the code, including companies that have since delisted or stopped filing, so most real projects intersect it with a current listing.

Setup

import os
import requests

BASE = "https://secfeedapi.com"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SECFEED_KEY']}"}

def get(path, **params):
    r = requests.get(f"{BASE}{path}", params=params, headers=HEADERS, timeout=60)
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json()

One page of an industry

semis = get("/v1/mapping/sic", sic=3674)
print(len(semis), "filers on page 1; first row:", semis[0])

Output:

100 filers on page 1; first row: {'cik': 1025881, 'name': '3DLABS INC LTD', 'state': 'D0'}

Rows are sorted by name and carry the CIK, name and state code. D0 is an EDGAR location code for a country outside the US (here, Bermuda).

Every page

Pass from to page, and stop when a page comes back short:

def all_filers(sic):
    out, start = [], 0
    while True:
        page = get("/v1/mapping/sic", sic=sic, **{"from": start})
        out += page
        if len(page) < 100:
            return out
        start += 100

from is a Python keyword, which is why it goes in through **{"from": start}.

Narrow to listed companies

Join the industry list with the NYSE and Nasdaq listings from /v1/mapping/exchange on CIK:

listed = {r["cik"]: r for ex in ("NYSE", "Nasdaq") for r in get("/v1/mapping/exchange", exchange=ex)}

for sic, label in [(3674, "Semiconductors & related devices"), (7372, "Prepackaged software"),
                   (2834, "Pharmaceutical preparations"), (6022, "State commercial banks")]:
    filers = all_filers(sic)
    live = [listed[f["cik"]] for f in filers if f["cik"] in listed]
    print(f"{sic}  {label:34} {len(filers):5} filers  {len(live):4} listed on NYSE/Nasdaq")

Output:

3674  Semiconductors & related devices     505 filers   100 listed on NYSE/Nasdaq
7372  Prepackaged software                1399 filers   184 listed on NYSE/Nasdaq
2834  Pharmaceutical preparations         1912 filers   501 listed on NYSE/Nasdaq
6022  State commercial banks              1325 filers   164 listed on NYSE/Nasdaq

The whole run took 18 seconds. Between one in four (pharma) and one in eight (banks) of the filers in each industry is listed on a major exchange today. The rest are delisted, acquired, private companies that file for other reasons, or quoted over the counter.

The first listed semiconductor companies by ticker, from the first two pages:

  AAOI   Nasdaq  APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
  ADI    Nasdaq  ANALOG DEVICES INC
  AIP    Nasdaq  Arteris, Inc.
  ALAB   Nasdaq  Astera Labs, Inc.
  ALGM   Nasdaq  ALLEGRO MICROSYSTEMS, INC.
  ALMU   Nasdaq  Aeluma, Inc.
  AMAT   Nasdaq  APPLIED MATERIALS INC /DE
  AMBA   Nasdaq  AMBARELLA INC
  AMBQ   NYSE    Ambiq Micro, Inc.
  AMD    Nasdaq  ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES INC
  AMKR   Nasdaq  AMKOR TECHNOLOGY, INC.
  AOSL   Nasdaq  ALPHA & OMEGA SEMICONDUCTOR Ltd

Sector versus industry

SIC codes are hierarchical: two digits are the major group, three the industry group, four the industry. A sector list is a range of codes:

Range	Group
2800 to 2899	Chemicals and allied products (includes pharma, 2834)
3600 to 3699	Electronic and other electrical equipment (includes semiconductors, 3674)
6000 to 6099	Depository institutions (includes banks, 6021 and 6022)
7370 to 7379	Computer programming and data processing (includes software, 7372)

Loop all_filers() over the codes in a range to build a sector list. Check a company's code with /v1/entities, which returns sic and sicDescription.

Limits of SIC

SIC was frozen in 1987, so newer businesses land in broad codes: many internet companies are in 7370 or 7372, and SPACs are in 6770 (blank checks). The code is assigned by SEC staff and changes rarely, so a company that pivoted can sit in its old industry for years. For close peer groups, start from SIC and refine by hand.

Next steps

List companies by exchange
Compare companies with XBRL frames once you have a peer list
CIK, CUSIP and ticker mapping and EDGAR Entities API