The most useful forms to examine when researching US listed companies:
10-K: A yearly report that provides a comprehensive financial overview of a firm’s business. Contains more detail than the Annual Report to Shareholders that firms are also required to prepare.
10-Q: An unaudited quarterly financial update that must be filed within 45 days of the conclusion of the most recent quarter.
8-K: Reports events such as a senior management change or major strategic shifts such as a mergers and acquisitions.
DEF-14A: This is the definitive proxy statement that provides the date and agenda items for the company’s next annual meeting. Proxy statements may also provide the names of major shareholders, executive and director pay, director biographies, and any shareholder matters that may be up for a vote.
S-1: This is the Registration Statement filed when a company raises funds for any reason, whether to repay debt or buy another firm. The S-1 details how much money was raised and for what purpose.
Forms 3 & 4: These filings are the means by which company insiders (usually officers and directors) report sales or purchases of the firm’s stock. These reports inform the investors of personal transactions that may reflect the insiders’ assessment of the company’s prospects. Form 3 is an initial filing and Form 4 reflects changes in the holding.
Michael Thomas, a recovering corporate investigator in the Washington, DC-area, who blogs at The Daily Caveat put us onto the Porter Wright SEC Actions blog. This blog is a wealth of information about issues surrounding SEC enforcement actions.
The free full text search in the EDGAR system at the SEC goes back only the past 4 years and the header information in SEC filings goes back to 1994.
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Access to Archival Databases (NARA AAD) has an index of historical Securities and Exchange Commission public companies - searchable by officer and director names and company names. These records go back to 1972 in Proposed Sale of Unregistered Securities by Individuals and back to 1978 in Trading of Securities by Corporate Insiders.
The descriptions of these two databases of SEC filings is as follows: Continue reading ‘Searching SEC Records’
