How to use SEC EDGAR to find any company filing

EDGAR is the Securities and Exchange Commission's electronic filing system. Public companies, funds and corporate insiders file their required documents there, and anyone can read them for free at sec.gov. When a news story cites an earnings figure, an acquisition or an executive's share sale, the original document is usually on EDGAR.

Find a company's filings

Use the company search on sec.gov and enter the company name or ticker. You will land on the company's filing page, which lists its documents newest first. Each company has a unique identifier called a CIK (Central Index Key); noting it is handy if a name is shared by several entities.

The list can be filtered by form type. The ones you will use most often:

Open the right document inside a filing

Each filing is a package. Clicking it opens an index of the documents inside: the main report plus exhibits. For an 8-K announcing earnings, the press release with the numbers is usually attached as an exhibit (commonly Exhibit 99.1), not in the short 8-K cover document itself. For a 10-K, the main document holds the report, while exhibits include material contracts and lists of subsidiaries.

Once you have the 10-K open, our guide on how to read a 10-K shows which sections to read first.

Search inside the text of filings

EDGAR has a full-text search tool that looks for words and phrases inside filings, not just company names. This is one of the most underused research tools available to anyone. You can search for a supplier's name to see which companies mention it, a product or technology, a phrase such as "going concern", or a competitor's name across an industry. Filters let you narrow by form type, date range and company.

Pull financial data in a structured form

Company financial statements are also tagged in a structured data format, and the SEC publishes developer interfaces that return a company's filing history and its reported financial facts. If you are comfortable with a spreadsheet or a little code, this lets you pull many periods of a figure, such as revenue, in one go instead of copying it by hand.

Two cautions. First, check one or two values against the original filing; tags can differ between companies and periods. Second, record which filing and period each number came from, so you can trace it later and notice when a figure has been restated.

Use EDGAR to check what you read

EDGAR is also a fact-checking tool. When an article, a video or a social media post makes a claim about a company, look for the filing. Did the company actually report that figure? Did the executive actually sell, or was it a planned sale disclosed in advance? Was the "new" risk already in last year's report? The original document often tells a calmer, more precise story than the headline built on top of it.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Reading the cover page and stopping. Many 8-Ks are a single page that points to an exhibit. The substance is in the attachment.
• Confusing a subsidiary or a similarly named company with the one you want. Check the CIK and the business description.
• Treating every Form 4 sale as a signal. Insiders sell for taxes, diversification and pre-arranged trading plans. The filing usually notes when a sale was made under such a plan.
• Using a number without its period. A figure from a 10-Q may be for the quarter or for the year to date. The column heading tells you which.

A simple EDGAR routine

1. Open the company's filing list and note the latest 10-K, 10-Q and recent 8-Ks.
2. Read the latest earnings release exhibit and the matching 10-Q.
3. Check recent Form 4 filings for insider activity, and the proxy for how executives are paid.
4. Run one full-text search on a topic that matters to your question.
5. Write down every number you use with its form, date and page.

From there, our guide on how to research a stock shows how to turn those documents into a conclusion. The complete method, including source sheets and worksheets, is in our ebook How to Research Like a Wall Street Analyst.