CapEdge makes it easy to read, search, compare and analyze company filings from the SEC EDGAR system.
Available filings
Most filing types are available on CapEdge, including 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, 6-K, S-1, S-4, F-1, 20-F, 40-F, and DEF 14A.
Historic filings are included back to the start of electronic filing in the 1990s for all filing types except ownership (e.g. 13-F, 3, 4 and 5) which are limited to the last 5-10 years.
New filings are added to CapEdge within 1-2 minutes of them being filed with SEC EDGAR. You can automatically receive new filing alerts for your favorite companies via email.
Filing view
A filing often consists of multiple files, many of which may not be of interest. By default the files list only displays the most important files, for example the main financial filing and Excel data for a quarterly or annual filing, or the press release (99.1 or 99) file for a news filing. If any files are hidden, a button will tell you how many files there are in total – click the button to show all available files for a filing.
A list of similar filings for the current company is displayed to make it easier to navigate the history of a company. By default, three filings of the same type (e.g. 10-Q) are displayed from before and after the current filing, if available.
Each company decides how to format their filings, which may not be your preferred format. CapEdge makes it easy to apply the same font and text-size to all filings, using the font and size buttons on the filing page. If you are registered and logged in, your settings will be remembered.
Where possible, the table of contents for a filing will display alongside the filing, to make it easier to navigate as you read.
Content analysis / sentiment analysis
A series of automated content analysis algorithms are run against financial filings, including 10-Qs and 10-Ks, to help you detect broad patterns or changes in language or sentiment. They analyze the core content of the filing, after the table of contents and before the exhibit list, excluding any tables of data.
Various scientific studies suggest some correlation between the types of words used (e.g. positive, negative, constraining) in filings and future stock or company performance. Some also advance a similar correlation between company performance and the change in the usage of these words over time. As such, we provide not just a measurement for the current filing, but also display a small chart to compare the values against those for previous filings (of the same type and company). Note that the value for each word type is relative to the average for the entire filing corpus, e.g. a filing with a high Uncertain value means that it contains much more uncertain language than the average filing. Further reading:
- Textual Analysis in Accounting and Finance: A Survey
- The Pessimism Factor: SEC EDGAR Form 10-K Textual Analysis and Stock Returns
- Using 10-K Text to Gauge Financial Constraints
Two measures of readability are displayed. The Gunning fog index is a common standard for readability, and estimates reading level by education grade.
The second readability value (from Very good to Very bad) is a custom measurement of Plain English, calculated by a proprietary CapEdge algorithm that is based on the first of the two papers below1. This statistic combines a series of scores that are associated with good, easy-to-read text: sentence length, word complexity, legalese, personal pronouns, active tense, double negatives, weak phrases, etc. Further reading:
We find significant relations between improved 10-K readability and increased small investor trading, the likelihood of seasoned equity issuance, and better corporate governance.1
- 1 Plain English, Readability, and 10-K Filings
- Guiding through the Fog: Does annual report readability reveal earnings management?
New words displays a list of words that are present in the current filing, but are not found in any of the three previous filings of the same type. These can help you quickly identify new opportunities, risks, themes, services or products. Click a word in the list to highlight all occurrences of it in the filing.
Removed words displays a list of words that were present in all of the previous three filings of the same type, but aren’t in the current filing.
Changes between similar filings (Diffs)
When a company releases a new financial filing like a 10-K or 10-Q, they usually update the previous filing document rather than create an entirely new filing document. This means that most of the text is often the same between subsequent filings, and meaningful changes are difficult to find, hidden in the boilerplate.
When you view a financial filing in CapEdge, a "View diff" button:
appears next to the list of earlier and later filings. Click the button to view the changes between the selected filing and the current filing.
The Diff highlights text that was removed or added. Red text was in the older filing but not in the newer filing. Green text is in the newer filing but not in the older filing. All other text is the same between filings.
Data tables are difficult to compare automatically, but where they share similar rows between filings, the rows are merged to help compare old and new columns of values. Hover over a data table to display the Show as separate tables button in the bottom left. A grey horizontal arrow appears next to the button for tables that are too wide to fit on screen and that can be scrolled horizontally.