7 Free Tools to Track Defense Company Ownership, Contracts and Stock Moves

A defense company's press release tells you what it wants you to know. Its regulatory filings, procurement records, and stock disclosures tell you what it is legally required to disclose. For anyone doing business development, competitive analysis, or due diligence in this industry, the second category is where the real picture lives, and almost all of it is free.

1. SEC EDGAR: Insider Trades and Corporate Filings

What it is: The US Securities and Exchange Commission's public database of every filing made by companies listed on US exchanges, including Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and L3Harris.

What it covers: Form 4 filings disclose every time a director, executive, or shareholder holding more than 10 percent buys or sells company stock, filed within two business days of the transaction. Annual 10-K and quarterly 10-Q filings disclose revenue by segment, major contracts, and risk factors in the company's own words.

How to use it: Search by company name or ticker at the EDGAR full text search tool. A cluster of insider purchases, several executives buying in a short window, is generally read as a stronger signal than a single sale, which is often just routine diversification or a scheduled 10b5-1 plan trade.

sec.gov/edgar

2. USAspending.gov: US Federal Spending Overview

What it is: The US government's official spending transparency portal, mandated by the 2014 DATA Act.

What it covers: A high-level, no-account-required view of federal contract awards searchable by agency, recipient, and time period. USAspending pulls its data from SAM.gov daily, making it useful for trend analysis rather than granular contract detail.

How to use it: Start here to see which agencies buy from a specific company and how that spending has trended over several years, before going to SAM.gov for the specific award record.

usaspending.gov

3. SAM.gov: Detailed US Contract Award Records

What it is: The System for Award Management, the US government's consolidated portal for federal contractor registration and contract award data.

What it covers: As of February 24, 2026, the General Services Administration decommissioned the older Federal Procurement Data System and migrated all contract award search into SAM.gov, making it the sole authoritative source for individual award records, amounts, and modification histories.

How to use it: A free account, authenticated through Login.gov, is required to see full contract award detail. This is the tool for confirming the exact value and terms of a specific US federal contract rather than the broader trend.

sam.gov

4. TED: EU Public Procurement Notices

What it is: Tenders Electronic Daily, the digital supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, dedicated to public procurement.

What it covers: More than 700,000 contract notices per year, worth over 670 billion euros, across all 27 EU member states plus the European Economic Area and other participating countries. Any EU public contract above set thresholds, roughly 143,000 euros for services and 5.5 million euros for works, must be published here.

How to use it: Search by CPV code (the EU's product and service classification system), country, contracting authority, or keyword to find defense-related tenders and awards across the entire bloc in one place, rather than checking 27 separate national portals.

ted.europa.eu

5. Business Registers Interconnection System: EU Company Lookup

What it is: The European e-Justice Portal's interconnection system, allowing a search of basic company registration data across all EU member state business registries from one interface.

What it covers: Legal name, registration number, legal form, registered address, and status (active, dissolved, in liquidation) for registered companies across the EU.

An important limit: this tool does not reliably give you beneficial ownership. Following a November 2022 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, most member states restricted or closed public access to their beneficial ownership registers. As of early 2026, only Estonia, Latvia, Norway, and Poland keep that data fully public. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and most others now require proof of legitimate interest, a status generally limited to journalists, researchers, and regulated professionals, or have suspended access entirely pending further court rulings.

How to use it: Use it to confirm a company's legal existence and basic registration facts. For ownership structure specifically, expect to need a legitimate interest request in most EU jurisdictions, or rely on the four countries above where the register remains open.

e-justice.europa.eu

6. OpenCorporates: Global Company Registry Aggregator

What it is: A free, searchable aggregator pulling official company registration data from government registries in more than 140 jurisdictions worldwide.

What it covers: Basic corporate records, filing history, and, where a jurisdiction publishes it, some ownership and officer data, aggregated into a single searchable interface rather than requiring a separate search of each country's registry.

How to use it: Best used as a starting point to identify which national registry actually holds a company's full record, then cross-checked against that country's own register or, for EU beneficial ownership specifically, against the access limits described above.

opencorporates.com

7. Free Stock Screeners: Institutional Holders and Price Moves

What it is: Free finance platforms such as Yahoo Finance that publish institutional ownership, major shareholder positions, and daily price data for any publicly listed company.

What it covers: The Holders tab on most free stock platforms shows which institutional investors and mutual funds hold a defense company's stock and how their positions have changed quarter over quarter, alongside standard price and volume history.

How to use it: Combine this with SEC EDGAR's Form 4 data (Tool 1): institutional holdings show the slower-moving, quarter-by-quarter picture of who owns a company, while Form 4 filings show real-time insider transactions as they happen.

finance.yahoo.com

Using these together

Ownership, contracts, and stock movement are three different questions, and no single tool answers all three. A practical sequence: use SAM.gov or TED to confirm a specific contract actually exists and its value, use EDGAR or the relevant national registry to confirm who owns or controls the company that won it, and use EDGAR's Form 4 data or a stock screener to see whether that company's own executives are buying or selling around the news.

Frequently asked questions

Can I look up the beneficial owner of any EU defense company for free? Not reliably in most EU countries. Following the 2022 CJEU ruling, only Estonia, Latvia, Norway, and Poland keep beneficial ownership registers fully public as of early 2026. Elsewhere, access generally requires proving a legitimate interest.

What is the difference between USAspending.gov and SAM.gov? USAspending.gov gives a high-level, no-account view of federal spending trends, updated daily from SAM.gov. SAM.gov, which absorbed the former FPDS.gov in February 2026, is the authoritative source for detailed individual contract award records and requires a free account for full access.

How quickly are insider stock trades disclosed? Directors, officers, and shareholders holding more than 10 percent of a US-listed company must file Form 4 with the SEC within two business days of a transaction.

Does TED cover defense contracts specifically? Yes, alongside every other public procurement category, as long as the contract exceeds the relevant EU publication threshold. Defense-related notices can be filtered using their specific CPV codes.