What’s behind the numbers

The data provided by this service comes primarily from SEC filings submitted by companies, certain types of funds, and institutional investors.

Company filing data is currently limited to 10-Ks and 10-Qs from US filers, specifically us-gaap filers. We don’t currently process IFRS filings, 20-F and 40-F filings by non-US companies, S-1s, 8-Ks, and a few more things. We intend to include these over time — if something is important to you, let us know. That is the best way to influence what we prioritize. Company filings are available starting from 2012 and are updated once a day: a 10-K or 10-Q filed on a given day typically shows up the next.

Fund filings are processed monthly. Open-end funds, closed-end funds and ETFs have a 60-day window to submit their previous quarter’s holdings, and we process those. Money market funds, private funds and hedge funds do not file these reports, and the service does not include them.

Institutional investors with portfolio values of more than $100 million report their long-only US-listed holdings through 13-F filings. They are not required to report short positions, so a market-neutral investor may appear as long-only. 13-F filings are processed daily, but the data only changes quarterly, because managers report the previous quarter within 45 days of its end.

We generate summaries for each 10-K and 10-Q filed. In doing so, we normalize numbers into millions and normalize signs so they are comparable across companies. We carry the original filing in full, including all its disclosures, which is sometimes what deep analysis needs. We also normalize differences between institutional investors so holdings across them become comparable.