How the figures are built

Every number on Ticker Filings comes from what a company reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This page explains where the numbers come from, how they are put together, and where they can fall short.

Where the data comes from

Public companies file their financial statements with the SEC in a structured format called XBRL. The SEC publishes those tagged figures through its EDGAR system, along with each company's list of filings. Ticker Filings reads three things from EDGAR:

  • Company facts: the tagged numbers from every 10-K, 10-Q, 20-F, and 40-F a company has filed.
  • Submissions: the company's filing history, industry code, fiscal year end, and listings.
  • Filing documents: for segment tables and recent earnings press releases, the filing itself.

We keep a copy of each file for up to a day, so a new filing usually appears within 24 hours of the SEC publishing its data. Nothing here is a live stock quote, and no figure is estimated by us except the next earnings date, which is labeled as an estimate.

Annual figures

Annual columns are full-year amounts from the annual report: Form 10-K for US companies, Form 20-F or 40-F for foreign issuers. When a company restates a year, we show the most recently filed number for that year, so a figure can differ from the one in the original report.

Quarterly figures

Quarterly columns are single-quarter amounts. Some lines, especially on the cash flow statement, are reported only as a year-to-date total in Form 10-Q. In that case the quarter is that total minus the previous quarter's year-to-date total. Companies do not file a 10-Q for the fourth quarter, so the fourth quarter is the full year from the annual report minus the first nine months. A column marked YTD is a year-to-date total, shown when the earlier report needed to isolate one quarter is missing.

Foreign issuers that file a 20-F or 40-F once a year do not file quarterly reports with the SEC, so only annual figures are shown for them.

Trailing twelve months

When a company has reported quarters after its latest fiscal year, the first column adds up the most recent twelve months: the latest year-to-date amount, plus the last full fiscal year, minus the year-ago year-to-date amount. On the balance sheet, the first column is the latest balance sheet when it is newer than the fiscal year end.

Lines we calculate

  • Gross profit is revenue minus cost of revenue when the company does not report it directly.
  • Operating expenses are the costs between gross profit and operating income.
  • EBITDA is operating income plus depreciation and amortization.
  • Free cash flow is operating cash flow minus capital expenditures.
  • Cash and investments adds short-term and long-term marketable securities to cash.
  • Total debt is short-term borrowings, long-term debt, and lease liabilities.
  • Net cash is cash and investments minus total debt. A negative number is net debt.
  • Margins divide a line by revenue. The effective tax rate divides income tax by pretax income.
  • Return on equity and return on assets divide the trailing twelve months of net income by the balance on that date.
  • Current ratio is current assets divided by current liabilities. Debt to equity is total debt divided by stockholders' equity.
  • Cash conversion is operating cash flow divided by net income.

Amounts are in US dollars and shown in millions in the statement tables, except per-share figures, ratios, and margins. Capital expenditures, debt repaid, dividends, and buybacks are shown as positive amounts. Investing and financing cash flows keep the sign from the filing, so an outflow is negative.

Segments

Segment tables split revenue the way the company does in its filings, for example by product line and by region. Each split is a separate view of total revenue, so the groups are not added together. The share under each figure is that line divided by total revenue.

Earnings releases

Release dates are the dates a company filed its earnings announcement with the SEC on Form 8-K under Item 2.02, Results of Operations. Until the 10-Q or 10-K for a quarter reaches the SEC's structured data, its figures come from the earnings press release attached to that 8-K. We show them only when the year-ago numbers in the press release match the ones already filed, and they are marked "From press release". The next earnings date is estimated from how many days after a quarter's end the company has usually reported.

Limits

Companies tag their numbers in different ways, and some change tags over time. We match each line to the most common tags and check totals against each other, but a line can be missing or differ from how a company presents it. Companies that do not file structured financial data, which is common for foreign companies traded over the counter, have no statement tables; their filings are still listed.

If a figure looks wrong, tell us and include the ticker and the line. Every figure links back to the SEC filings it came from, and the filing on SEC.gov is the authoritative source.