Check a company's SEC filings for red flags
Type a ticker. Every late filing, auditor change, restatement, delisting notice and going-concern warning in the company’s last three years of filings, each linked to the filing itself. Free.
How it works
Type a ticker
Or a CIK, for a company that has been delisted.
Three years of filings read
Late filings, auditor changes, restatements, listing notices, bankruptcy, amended 10-Ks and going-concern language.
Every flag linked
Each one is the filing on EDGAR, so you can read what the company said.
Filings from SEC EDGAR, read again every twelve hours.
What are the red flags in a company's SEC filings?
The ones a company has to file itself. A Form NT 10-K or NT 10-Q says it could not file its report on time. An 8-K under item 4.01 says its auditor resigned or was dismissed; item 4.02 says earlier financial statements should no longer be relied on, which is a restatement; item 3.01 says an exchange warned it about a listing rule; item 1.03 is bankruptcy. A 10-K/A amends an annual report. And a 10-K or 10-Q that says there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern is the plainest warning a filing can give.
How do I check them without reading every filing?
Each of these, except going-concern language, is recorded on EDGAR as a form type or an 8-K item number, so the check reads that record rather than the prose: it cannot miss one the company filed, and it does not guess. Going-concern language is found by searching the text of the company’s 10-Ks and 10-Qs, and shown with the filing so you can read whether it is a finding or a risk factor.
What does it not check?
Whether the auditor found a material weakness in internal controls: every clean 10-K mentions the phrase too, so telling them apart means reading Item 9A. Nor the auditor’s report itself, related-party transactions, insider sales or what changed between one filing and the next. Signed in, hedwigai reads all of that and writes it as a diligence memo, every claim linked to its filing.
Is no flag a clean company?
No. It means none of these was filed in three years. A company can be in trouble without one, and a flag can have an innocent reason: auditors change after mergers, and an amended 10-K often only adds the part III information. Each flag links the filing so you can read why.