The fifteen-minute read of a 10-K or 10-Q, and where to find them

A 10-K is the annual report a US-listed company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A 10-Q is the quarterly version, lighter and unaudited. Both are long, and both are written for lawyers as much as for readers. You do not need to read them cover to cover. You need a route through them that takes fifteen minutes and finds the ten lines that matter.

Where to find filings: EDGAR

Every US public company files with the SEC, and the SEC publishes everything for free on EDGAR at sec.gov. The company's own investor relations site usually has the same documents, often in a friendlier format, but EDGAR is the primary source and it is where the filings appear first.

The filings a trader cares about:

Earnings themselves arrive as a press release attached to an 8-K, usually before or after the market session, weeks before the full 10-Q. On earnings day you read the 8-K; the 10-Q comes later with the detail.

The ten lines

Before opening a filing, know what you are looking for. From modules 2.1 to 2.3, these ten lines cover most of what a trader needs:

1. Revenue and year-on-year growth
2. Gross margin
3. Operating margin
4. Diluted EPS (GAAP and adjusted)
5. Diluted share count and its change from a year ago
6. Cash
7. Total debt and the maturity schedule
8. Cash from operations
9. Capex (so you can compute free cash flow)
10. Guidance, if any

ACME's ten lines from the material so far: revenue $2,000M (+12%), gross margin 40.0%, operating margin 15.0%, diluted EPS $2.10, shares 100M (down from 103M), cash $200M, debt $600M with nothing due for 3 years, CFO $330M, capex $110M (FCF $220M), guidance for next year EPS of $2.40.

That is a complete picture in ten numbers. Everything else in the filing either supports them, explains them, or does not matter for a trade.

The fifteen-minute route

Minutes 0 to 2: the cover and the share count. The first page states the shares outstanding as of a recent date. Compare with the same page a year ago.

Minutes 2 to 6: the financial statements. In a 10-Q they are near the front (Part I, Item 1). In a 10-K they are in Item 8, usually past the halfway point. Read the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement in that order and fill in lines 1 to 9. Compute the margins yourself; the filing does not always state them.

Minutes 6 to 11: Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A). Item 2 in a 10-Q, Item 7 in a 10-K. This is management's own explanation of why the numbers moved. Read the revenue discussion and the margin discussion. Words to watch for: "pricing", "mix", "volume", "one-time", "headwind", "normalise". A gross margin that fell "due to unfavourable mix" is a different story from one that fell "due to pricing actions by competitors".

Minutes 11 to 13: liquidity and debt. Still in MD&A, a section titled "Liquidity and Capital Resources". It states cash, available credit lines, debt maturities, and often the covenants. This is where refinancing risk lives.

Minutes 13 to 15: risk factors, skimmed for changes. Item 1A. Every filing has pages of boilerplate risks. The trick is to look for what is new. Companies must update risk factors when something material changes, so a new paragraph about "our largest customer, representing 22% of revenue, has indicated it may reduce orders" is a gift. Many tools show a redline against the previous filing; if you have one, use it here.

Key idea: A filing is not a book to be read; it is a database to be queried. Know the ten lines, know where they sit, and let the rest go.

What to skip

Almost everything else, at least on the first pass. The business description (Item 1) is useful once, when you first learn a company, and rarely changes. Legal proceedings matter only if a specific case is large relative to the company. The notes to the financial statements are where accountants go for detail; a trader needs only two of them: debt maturities and, for companies with a lot of acquisitions, goodwill.

A worked pass on ACME's 10-Q

A trader opens ACME's latest 10-Q eleven days before earnings and notes:

• Shares: 100.2M, down from 103.1M. Buyback continuing.
• Revenue $520M for the quarter, +12% year on year. Gross margin 40.3%, up from 39.8%. Operating margin 15.4%, up from 14.5%.
• Cash $200M, debt $600M, next maturity three years out, covenant at 3.5 times debt/EBITDA (current: 1.58). No refinancing risk.
• CFO $85M for the quarter, capex $28M, FCF $57M.
• MD&A: growth "driven by volume in the industrial segment, partially offset by softness in consumer". Consumer is 30% of revenue. First mention of consumer softness.
• Risk factors: one new paragraph about tariffs on imported components.

Fifteen minutes. The trader now knows that the report in eleven days will be judged on whether industrial volume holds, whether consumer softness spreads, and whether tariffs touch gross margin. The headline EPS beat or miss will be interpreted through those three questions, and the trader has them before the crowd does.

Try it: Go to EDGAR, search for any company, open its most recent 10-Q, and time yourself filling in the ten lines. The first one takes thirty minutes. By the fifth, it takes twelve.

Recap

• EDGAR (sec.gov) is the free primary source for 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, Form 4, 13F and offering documents.
• Earnings arrive as an 8-K press release; the 10-Q with full detail follows weeks later.
• Ten lines cover what a trader needs: growth, two margins, EPS, share count, cash, debt and maturities, CFO, capex, guidance.
• Route: cover, statements, MD&A, liquidity section, new risk factors. Skip the rest on a first pass.
• The point of the read is to know which three questions the next report will be judged on.