How to Find and Read 10-Q and 8-K Filings on EDGAR

Two form numbers carry most of what a company tells the SEC between one annual report and the next. The 10-Q is scheduled. The 8-K is not. Knowing which is which, and what each one is obliged to contain, tells you where to look when a stock moves and the headline only says the company “filed with the SEC.”

What a 10-Q is

The 10-Q is the quarterly report. Companies file one for each of the first three quarters of their fiscal year; the fourth quarter is folded into the annual 10-K.

It has the same bones as the annual report in a smaller frame: the three financial statements, their notes, and a management discussion of the quarter. The financial statements in a 10-Q are unaudited. That’s the main difference in reliability from the 10-K, where an auditor signs off on the full year.

Read it for change. Line the quarter up against its counterpart from the prior year, check the year-to-date cash flow, and look at the notes for anything that shifted since the last annual report, such as a new debt facility, a change in segment reporting, or a legal matter that has moved from a footnote to a paragraph of its own. The method for the annual version is laid out in how to read a 10-K.

What an 8-K is

The 8-K is the current report. It exists for events that shareholders should hear about before the next scheduled filing.

SEC rules list the events that trigger one, and for most of them the company has four business days from the event to get the form filed. That’s the general rule. A few items run on different timing, so check the filing date against the date of the event before assuming how fresh the news is.

Every 8-K is organized by item numbers. The numbers tell you what kind of event it is before you read a word of the text.

Item	What it reports
1.01	The company entered into a material agreement
2.02	Results of operations and financial condition, usually an earnings release
5.02	A director or officer left, was appointed, or had pay arrangements changed

Item 2.02 is the one traders watch around earnings. Companies file it when they announce quarterly results, often attaching the earnings release. Item 5.02 is worth reading closely. The departure of a chief financial officer shortly before a report is a very different signal from a planned retirement announced a year ahead, and the 8-K text often says which it is.

Find them on EDGAR

EDGAR is the SEC’s public filing system. It’s free.

Search by company name or ticker. The result is the company’s filing list, newest first, with the form type, a description, the filing date and a link to each filing. Use the form type filter to narrow it: type “10-Q” to see only quarterly reports, or “8-K” for current reports. Amendments show up as separate form types, such as 10-Q/A or 8-K/A.

Each filing opens to an index page. It lists every document in the filing: the main form and its exhibits. The main form is the primary document. For 10-Qs, open that. For 8-Ks, the primary document is often short, a page or two naming the item and pointing to an exhibit, so the exhibit is where the substance is.

EDGAR also shows the same company’s other filings in the same list. Insider trades are reported on Form 4, and how to look up insider buying covers those.

Open the exhibits

Exhibits carry most of the detail in an 8-K. Exhibit 99.1 is commonly the press release. For an Item 2.02 filing, that’s the earnings release with the headline numbers, the tables, and usually a reconciliation from adjusted figures back to the reported ones.

Read the release itself before anyone’s summary of it. Headlines pick one number, and the release has all of them, including the guidance, the segment tables and the reconciliation that shows how far the adjusted figure sits from the reported one; read the press release makes the full case.

Material contracts disclosed under Item 1.01 may be attached here or with a later quarterly or annual report, and they can be long. Skim the definitions and the termination terms first.

What goes wrong

• Reading a 10-Q as if it were audited.
• Missing an 8-K/A that corrects or completes an earlier filing.
• Reading only the primary document of an 8-K and never opening Exhibit 99.1.
• Assuming the filing date is the event date, when the company may have had several business days to file, and the market may already have heard about the event through a press release or a call before the form appeared on EDGAR.