The Microcap Minute Classroom. Module 9, chapter 5: From screen to filing: every candidate gets verified on EDGAR before it earns your time <div class="learn" markdown="1"> **What you will learn** - Why screener numbers are secondhand and filings are the source - What EDGAR is, and the three forms to know first - A five-step routine that verifies any candidate in about fifteen minutes - How to search across filings, including our own filings-search page </div> A screener's numbers are like a WhatsApp forward: usually right, but you have not seen the original. For US companies the original exists, it is free, and the law says it must exist. Before any name from a screen earns your reading time, you check it against the company's own filings. This chapter is the habit that separates readers from clickers. ## Meet EDGAR EDGAR is the online filing cabinet of the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator and roughly what SEBI is in India. Every US-listed company must file its reports there, signed, under law. Three forms to know first: the 10-K, the big annual report; the 10-Q, the quarterly update; and the 8-K, sudden news like a boss leaving or a factory closing. Notice the steady stream of forms: this is where every serious number about Apple is born. ## The verification routine Five steps, about fifteen minutes per company: 1. Find the company on EDGAR. 2. Open its newest 10-K. 3. Check the exact numbers your screen used: revenue, profit, debt. 4. Read Item 1A, the risk factors. 5. Skim Item 7, where the managers explain the year in their own words. Notice how the 10-K is organised into numbered items, so Items 1A and 7 are easy to jump to. Small differences between a screener and a filing are normal: websites sometimes adjust numbers or add quarters together differently. A big difference is a red flag about the website's data, and a reason to trust only the filing. And if a company does not file at all, or files late again and again, that silence is also an answer: cross it off and move on. Companies that respect their shareholders tend to respect their filing deadlines too. ## Searching instead of scrolling EDGAR also has a [full-text search](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/): type a phrase like "supply chain" and it searches millions of filings at once. Our own [filings-search page](https://themicrocapinvestor.github.io/smart-investor-tracker/filings-search.html) does something similar for a curated set, built to be friendly for readers like you. Notice the single query box sitting in front of the filings: type a company or a topic and go straight to the documents. Yes, this step is slow. That is the point. Anyone can run a screen in two minutes; almost nobody opens the filing. Most of what this classroom teaches lives in that gap. <div class="try" markdown="1"> **Try it yourself** Take one name from your Chapter 3 watchlist. Find it on EDGAR (the search box on [sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/) finds any company by name; [here is Apple's page](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=320193&owner=exclude) as an example). Open its latest 10-K, find the total revenue, and compare it with the revenue shown on the company's StockAnalysis page. Write down whether they match, and by how much. </div> <div class="takeaways" markdown="1"> **Key takeaways** - Screener data is a copy; the filing is the signed original. - EDGAR is free; learn three forms first: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K. - Verify the exact numbers your screen used before giving a company your time. - Small mismatches are normal arithmetic; big ones are a warning about the data. </div>. I am Ritu, a synthetic voice, and the words I am reading are Ayush Agrawal's.

# From screen to filing: every candidate gets verified on EDGAR before it earns your time <div class="learn" markdown="1"> **What you will learn** - Why screener numbers are secondhand and filings are the source - What EDGAR is, and the three forms to know first - A five-step routine that verifies any candidate in about fifteen minutes - How to search across filings, including our own filings-search page </div> A screener's numbers are like a WhatsApp forward: usually right, but you have not seen the original. For US companies the original exists, it is free, and the law says it must exist. Before any name from a screen earns your reading time, you check it against the company's own filings. This chapter is the habit that separates readers from clickers. ## Meet EDGAR EDGAR is the online filing cabinet of the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator and roughly what SEBI is in India. Every US-listed company must file its reports there, signed, under law. Three forms to know first: the 10-K, the big annual report; the 10-Q, the quarterly update; and the 8-K, sudden news like a boss leaving or a factory closing. Notice the steady stream of forms: this is where every serious number about Apple is born. ## The verification routine Five steps, about fifteen minutes per company: 1. Find the company on EDGAR. 2. Open its newest 10-K. 3. Check the exact numbers your screen used: revenue, profit, debt. 4. Read Item 1A, the risk factors. 5. Skim Item 7, where the managers explain the year in their own words. Notice how the 10-K is organised into numbered items, so Items 1A and 7 are easy to jump to. Small differences between a screener and a filing are normal: websites sometimes adjust numbers or add quarters together differently. A big difference is a red flag about the website's data, and a reason to trust only the filing. And if a company does not file at all, or files late again and again, that silence is also an answer: cross it off and move on. Companies that respect their shareholders tend to respect their filing deadlines too. ## Searching instead of scrolling EDGAR also has a [full-text search](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/): type a phrase like "supply chain" and it searches millions of filings at once. Our own [filings-search page](https://themicrocapinvestor.github.io/smart-investor-tracker/filings-search.html) does something similar for a curated set, built to be friendly for readers like you. Notice the single query box sitting in front of the filings: type a company or a topic and go straight to the documents. Yes, this step is slow. That is the point. Anyone can run a screen in two minutes; almost nobody opens the filing. Most of what this classroom teaches lives in that gap. <div class="try" markdown="1"> **Try it yourself** Take one name from your Chapter 3 watchlist. Find it on EDGAR (the search box on [sec.gov](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/) finds any company by name; [here is Apple's page](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=320193&owner=exclude) as an example). Open its latest 10-K, find the total revenue, and compare it with the revenue shown on the company's StockAnalysis page. Write down whether they match, and by how much. </div> <div class="takeaways" markdown="1"> **Key takeaways** - Screener data is a copy; the filing is the signed original. - EDGAR is free; learn three forms first: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K. - Verify the exact numbers your screen used before giving a company your time. - Small mismatches are normal arithmetic; big ones are a warning about the data. </div>

That was chapter 5 of module 9. The text, the pictures and the exercise are on the lesson page. Thank you for listening.