Seal of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission

The SEC filing is a

financial statement Financial statements (or financial reports) are formal records of the financial activities and position of a business, person, or other entity. Relevant financial information is presented in a structured manner and in a form which is easy to un ...

or other formal document submitted to the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

(SEC).

Public companies A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (list ...

, certain

insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

s, and broker-dealers are required to make regular SEC filings.

Investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

s and financial professionals rely on these filings for information about companies they are evaluating for investment purposes. Many, but not all SEC filings are available online through the SEC's EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) database.

Common filing types

The most commonly filed SEC forms are the 10-K and the 10-Q. These forms are composed of four main sections: The business section, the F-pages, the Risk Factors, and the MD&A. The business section provides an overview of the Company. The F-pages contain the financial statements which are either audited or reviewed by an independent auditor. The Risk Factors contain a list of all of the potential risks that exist for the company. While the MD&A contains a narrative about the financial results of the company. This narrative is also accompanied by management's expectations for the upcoming year. Other filings are required with respect to offerings by

private companies A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

All filing types

Th
filings
accepted by the SEC as of November 2011.

Form suffixes

Finding forms

All forms are filed with the SEC, and many can be found for free in the SEC's EDGAR database. There are also several other portals that specialize in sorting information found in individual forms, such as the financial search engine, AlphaSense. Forms which are not found in EDGAR include the Form PF, which is used for private funds and is kept confidential per the Dodd–Frank Act.Memorandum: SEC Adopts Form PF

References

{{Reflist

External links

*
full listing of EDGAR form types

(including forms not included in EDGAR list)
SEC website
* Financial reporting