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This will give you a broader idea of whether your investment is a strong choice, where its weaknesses are, and how it could stand to improve. The Form 8-K is what a company uses to disclose major developments that occur between filings of the Form K or Form Q. Major company events that would necessitate the filing of a Form 8-K include bankruptcies or receiverships , material impairments , completion of acquisition or disposition of assets, or departures or appointments of executives.

Form 8-K provides investors with timely notification of significant changes at a company. Many of these changes are defined explicitly by the SEC such as a merger or acquisition , while others are simply events that firms consider to be sufficiently noteworthy for its shareholders such as a new product release or upgrade.

Either way, the 8-K provides a way for firms to communicate directly with investors in a way that is not filtered or altered by media organizations or sell-side analysts. Form 8-K also provides a valuable record for financial research and analysis. For example, an analyst may wonder what influence certain corporate events have on stock prices.

It is possible to estimate the impact of these events using statistical techniques like regressions , but researchers need reliable data. Because 8-K disclosures are legally standardized and must be honest and accurate, they provide a complete record and prevent sample selection bias. In the proxy statement , investors can view the salaries of the management of a company and any other perks that a company's management is eligible for.

The proxy statement is presented prior to the shareholder meeting and must be filed with the SEC before soliciting a shareholder vote on the election of directors and approval of other corporate actions. Public companies hold annual meetings where shareholders convene to vote on various corporate actions or for new members to the board of directors. Owning common stock in a company gives you a vote usually one vote per share , but it is not typically feasible to attend the annual meeting.

The proxy statement allows you to cast your votes using a designated person, who will aggregate votes and cast them on your behalf.

This person is known as a proxy and will cast a proxy vote in line with the shareholder's directions as written on their proxy card. Proxy votes may be cast by mail, phone, or online before the cutoff time. This deadline is usually 24 hours before the shareholder meeting commences. The proxy statement will therefore present the items that will be voted on and allow you to return a form to the company to inform your proxy how your votes should be cast.

Corporate insiders must file Forms 3, 4, and 5. The SEC defines a corporate insider as "a company's officers and directors, and any beneficial owners of more than ten percent of a class of the company's equity securities registered under Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of If you're an investor, it pays to know what the company's owners and most important shareholders i. By watching the trading activity of corporate insiders and large institutional investors , it's easier to get a sense of a stock's prospects.

While insider or institutional ownership on its own is not necessarily a buy or sell signal, it certainly offers a handy first screen in the search for a good investment. Since insider ownership and trading can impact share prices, Forms 3, 4, and 5 are useful disclosures.

By paying close attention to what insiders do with their company shares, savvy investors can make the reasonable assumption they know a lot more about their company's prospects than the rest of us outsiders. So, if insiders are buying shares in their own companies, they might know something that normal investors do not.

The insider might buy because they see great potential, the possibility for merger or acquisition in the future, or simply because they think their stock is undervalued. One of the greatest investors of all time, Peter Lynch , once said, "insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.

You can also have too much insider ownership. When insiders gain corporate control, management may not feel responsible to shareholders and instead try to enrich only themselves. It provides the following information:. This addition responded to the increasing use of tender offers as part of corporate takeovers. Schedule 13D was designed to give individual investors warning of impending changes to corporate control that could impact the future of the company, which would result from the consolidation of voting power by corporate raiders.

Investors use Schedule 13D to both detect red flags in the consolidation of insider ownership that can be potentially harmful to individual shareholders, but also as a possible harbinger of a company being acquired or bought out, which could benefit shareholders. Form is required when corporate insiders want to dispose of company stock. Form is a notice of the intent to sell restricted stock, typically acquired by insiders or affiliates in a transaction not involving a public offering.

The stock is restricted because it must meet certain conditions before becoming transferable. The transaction, or at least part of it, is made within 90 days of filing. While investors can look to Forms 3, 4, and 5 for changes in insider ownership, Form is useful for knowing how many potential shares will be offered for sale on the open market after the lock-up period for a new issue, such as an IPO, expires. Form can indicate how much a stock price might suffer if a flood of new sale orders enter the market when the lock-up ends.

The lock-up agreement is a legally binding contract between company underwriters and insiders that prohibits insiders from selling any shares of stock for a specified period of time. Lock-up periods typically last days but can on occasion last for as little as days or as long as days.

In , the SEC updated disclosure requirements for foreign companies offering securities in the U. For foreign companies without SEC-registered securities, the rules eliminated the requirement that they submit paper disclosures to the SEC, in favor of allowing them to post disclosures in English on the internet.

In addition, the deadline for foreign companies to submit annual reports was shortened from six months to four months. Many investors today seek to diversify their portfolios geographically by including holdings of securities issued by non-U. These can include shares or bonds issued by companies in the developed world to emerging market economies. Shares of foreign companies can be acquired on U.

ADRs offer U. Foreign firms also benefit, as ADRs enable them to attract American investors and capital without the hassle and expense of listing on U. Foreign issuers must file forms with the SEC in a similar fashion to domestic companies to provide investors with accurate and up-to-date information.

Form F-6 , for instance, is a regulatory document that all investment firms must register with the SEC if they wish to offer ADRs, while Form F-4 supports the registration of securities involving foreign private issuers in connection with exchange offers and business combinations. The purpose is to provide transparency and information to investors, analysts, and regulators. You may also be able to find SEC filings using your online brokerage platform or a financial portal such as Google Finance.

Companies may also host their own copies on their corporate websites and would be available from their investor relations department. Note that in special circumstances, a company may request that certain information be redacted from their otherwise public filings. It allows for information in the SEC filing to be kept secret or redacted on public documents, if leaking such information could cause material or financial harm to the company or a business partner.

Ultimately, the SEC wants the public to know the facts so they can make well-informed decisions about when to buy, sell, or hold a company's securities. Obtaining the available material and interpreting it correctly can provide any investor with valuable guidance when making investment decisions. Understanding the information submitted by companies through SEC filings involves reading between the lines.

Review several SEC documents together to better understand the overall picture, especially with financial forms, and read them in a way that maximizes efficiency. Financial ratios are often used to identify a company's short- and long-term financial strength. Red flags are often revealed in a company's footnotes. Red flags include a very confusing section s in a K or Q, sudden one-time or special charges, or a large degree of insider selling. Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society.

Kennedy and the Creation of the SEC Securities and Exchange Commission. Accessed Oct. Investors in Foreign Companies. Investing Essentials. Business Leaders. Financial Statements. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads.

Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Your Money. Personal Finance. Your Practice. Indexes to all public filings are available from Q3 through the present and located in the following browsable directories:. Each directory and all child subdirectories contain three files to assist in automated crawling of these directories.

Note that these are not visible through directory browsing. Each feed and oldloads directory and all child subdirectories contain three files to assist in automated crawling of these directories:. The index paths link to the raw text version of the complete disseminated filing content, for example:. All the documents submitted for a given filing will be in this directory:.

Accession number: In the example above, is the accession number, a unique identifier assigned automatically to an accepted submission by EDGAR. The first set of numbers is the CIK of the entity submitting the filing. This could be the company or a third-party filer agent. The next two numbers 15 represent the year.

The last series of numbers represent a sequential count of submitted filings from that CIK. The count is usually, but not always, reset to zero at the start of each calendar year. Each CIK directory and all child subdirectories contain three files to assist in automated crawling of these directories. These are not visible through directory browsing.

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