Glossary
10-K
The annual report a US public company files with the SEC, holding its audited financial statements and its own list of what could go wrong.
Every company whose shares trade on a US exchange files one once a year with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is not marketing. The glossy annual report with photographs of the staff is a separate document; the 10-K is the legal filing behind it, and it is where the audited numbers live.
It is long, and it is not written to be read cover to cover. The sections people actually open are the financial statements, the management discussion that explains what changed and why, and the risk factors, which is a list the company itself writes of everything that could damage the business. That last section is the plainest English in the document and the least read.
ConvictionStocks reads these filings directly rather than buying the figures from a data vendor. That is why a number on a company page can differ from the same number on a finance portal: the filing has its own definitions, and the page says which one it is showing.
Related terms
- 10-QThe quarterly report a US public company files with the SEC, covering three months and lighter than the annual 10-K.
- Earnings ReportA company's quarterly public account of what it earned and spent, filed with regulators and released on a set date.
- RevenueAll the money a company brought in from selling its products and services, before any costs are subtracted.
- Debt-to-Equity RatioHow much a company owes compared with what shareholders own, where a ratio of 1 means the two are equal.
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