The Microcap Minute Classroom. Module 4, chapter 1: The 8-K: the something-just-happened form <div class="learn" markdown="1"> <h2>What you will learn</h2> <ul> <li>What an 8-K is, and when a company must file one</li> <li>Why the 8-K is the fastest official news you can get</li> <li>How to spot an 8-K in a company's filing list</li> <li>Why most 8-Ks are routine, not drama</li> </ul> </div> Imagine your school has a notice board with a strict rule: whenever something big happens, the principal must pin a note there within four days. The head of maths quits? Pin a note. Two schools merge? Pin a note. Exam results declared? Pin a note. Students do not need to gossip or guess. They just check the board. The US stock market has exactly such a board. It is called EDGAR, a free website run by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US market regulator, roughly America's SEBI. And the pinned note is a form called the 8-K. An 8-K is a "current report": a short filing a listed company must send to the SEC when something important happens between its big yearly and quarterly reports. The law gives the company four business days after the event. Many companies file much faster, because hiding news from your own owners is a terrible look. In earlier modules you met the 10-K, the fat yearly book. The 10-K is the school magazine: thick, polished, once a year. The 8-K is the notice board: short, plain, and sometimes pinned twice in the same week. ## A real one: Apple changes its CEO On Monday, April 20, 2026, Apple filed an 8-K. It is barely two pages long, and it says one enormous thing. Under "Item 5.02", Apple announced that Tim Cook will step aside as Chief Executive Officer (CEO, the top boss of a company) on September 1, 2026 and become Executive Chair of the board. John Ternus, Apple's hardware engineering chief and an Apple employee since 2001, becomes the new CEO on the same day. Notice the speed. Apple's board made its decision on Friday, April 17. The whole world could read it on EDGAR on Monday. No paywall, no TV channel, no tip from a friend: every investor on Earth got the news at the same time, for free. A kid in India with a phone read it the same minute as a fund manager in New York. Look at the "Item" line near the top: an 8-K always labels its news with an item number, so you know what kind of event you are holding before you read a single sentence. Notice the Form column: between the fat 10-K and 10-Q reports sit many small 8-Ks, each one a single pinned note about a single event. One honest warning. An 8-K does not always mean drama. Most 8-Ks are routine: quarterly results, shareholder votes, small legal updates. The trick is the item number, which tells you in two seconds whether the note says "results are out" (Item 2.02) or "the boss is leaving" (Item 5.02). The next chapter is a map of those numbers. <div class="try" markdown="1"> <h2>Try it yourself</h2> <p>Open <a href="https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&amp;CIK=0000320193&amp;type=8-K&amp;dateb=&amp;owner=include&amp;count=40">Apple's 8-K list on EDGAR</a>. Count how many 8-Ks Apple filed in the last three months. Then open the newest one and write down, in one line each: the date of the event, the item number, and what happened, in your own words. Ten minutes, no login, no payment.</p> </div> <div class="takeaways" markdown="1"> <h2>Key takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>An 8-K is a short "something just happened" report to the SEC.</li> <li>Companies must file it within four business days of the event; many file within one.</li> <li>EDGAR is free: you read the same note as every big fund, at the same minute.</li> <li>The item number is the headline: learn a handful and you can judge any 8-K in seconds.</li> <li>Most 8-Ks are routine. Read the item line before reacting to any headline.</li> </ul> </div> ## Read one real thing [Apple's 8-K of April 20, 2026](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000114036126015711/ef20071035_8k.htm), the CEO handover itself. Notice how short it is: the biggest Apple news of the decade fits on two pages. That is the whole personality of an 8-K.. I am Ritu, a synthetic voice, and the words I am reading are Ayush Agrawal's.

# The 8-K: the something-just-happened form <div class="learn" markdown="1"> <h2>What you will learn</h2> <ul> <li>What an 8-K is, and when a company must file one</li> <li>Why the 8-K is the fastest official news you can get</li> <li>How to spot an 8-K in a company's filing list</li> <li>Why most 8-Ks are routine, not drama</li> </ul> </div> Imagine your school has a notice board with a strict rule: whenever something big happens, the principal must pin a note there within four days. The head of maths quits? Pin a note. Two schools merge? Pin a note. Exam results declared? Pin a note. Students do not need to gossip or guess. They just check the board. The US stock market has exactly such a board. It is called EDGAR, a free website run by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US market regulator, roughly America's SEBI. And the pinned note is a form called the 8-K. An 8-K is a "current report": a short filing a listed company must send to the SEC when something important happens between its big yearly and quarterly reports. The law gives the company four business days after the event. Many companies file much faster, because hiding news from your own owners is a terrible look. In earlier modules you met the 10-K, the fat yearly book. The 10-K is the school magazine: thick, polished, once a year. The 8-K is the notice board: short, plain, and sometimes pinned twice in the same week. ## A real one: Apple changes its CEO On Monday, April 20, 2026, Apple filed an 8-K. It is barely two pages long, and it says one enormous thing. Under "Item 5.02", Apple announced that Tim Cook will step aside as Chief Executive Officer (CEO, the top boss of a company) on September 1, 2026 and become Executive Chair of the board. John Ternus, Apple's hardware engineering chief and an Apple employee since 2001, becomes the new CEO on the same day. Notice the speed. Apple's board made its decision on Friday, April 17. The whole world could read it on EDGAR on Monday. No paywall, no TV channel, no tip from a friend: every investor on Earth got the news at the same time, for free. A kid in India with a phone read it the same minute as a fund manager in New York. Look at the "Item" line near the top: an 8-K always labels its news with an item number, so you know what kind of event you are holding before you read a single sentence. Notice the Form column: between the fat 10-K and 10-Q reports sit many small 8-Ks, each one a single pinned note about a single event. One honest warning. An 8-K does not always mean drama. Most 8-Ks are routine: quarterly results, shareholder votes, small legal updates. The trick is the item number, which tells you in two seconds whether the note says "results are out" (Item 2.02) or "the boss is leaving" (Item 5.02). The next chapter is a map of those numbers. <div class="try" markdown="1"> <h2>Try it yourself</h2> <p>Open <a href="https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&amp;CIK=0000320193&amp;type=8-K&amp;dateb=&amp;owner=include&amp;count=40">Apple's 8-K list on EDGAR</a>. Count how many 8-Ks Apple filed in the last three months. Then open the newest one and write down, in one line each: the date of the event, the item number, and what happened, in your own words. Ten minutes, no login, no payment.</p> </div> <div class="takeaways" markdown="1"> <h2>Key takeaways</h2> <ul> <li>An 8-K is a short "something just happened" report to the SEC.</li> <li>Companies must file it within four business days of the event; many file within one.</li> <li>EDGAR is free: you read the same note as every big fund, at the same minute.</li> <li>The item number is the headline: learn a handful and you can judge any 8-K in seconds.</li> <li>Most 8-Ks are routine. Read the item line before reacting to any headline.</li> </ul> </div> ## Read one real thing [Apple's 8-K of April 20, 2026](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000114036126015711/ef20071035_8k.htm), the CEO handover itself. Notice how short it is: the biggest Apple news of the decade fits on two pages. That is the whole personality of an 8-K.

That was chapter 1 of module 4. The text, the pictures and the exercise are on the lesson page. Thank you for listening.