Financial Glossary

A 10-K is the annual report that every publicly traded U.S. company must file with the SEC, containing audited financial statements, risk factors, and a management discussion of the business.

A 10-Q is the quarterly report that public companies file with the SEC three times per year, containing unaudited financial statements and a condensed management discussion.

A 13F-HR is a quarterly SEC filing that institutional investment managers with $100 million or more in assets must submit, disclosing their U.S. equity holdings.

An 8-K is a current report filed with the SEC when a significant event occurs at a public company — such as an acquisition, CEO departure, bankruptcy, or auditor change.

An accession number is a unique 20-character identifier assigned to every SEC filing on EDGAR, formatted as filer-CIK-year-sequence (e.g., 0001193125-24-012345).

A beneficial owner is any person who directly or indirectly has voting power or investment power over shares of a public company, regardless of whose name the shares are registered in.

Book value is a company's total assets minus total liabilities as reported on the balance sheet — the theoretical amount shareholders would receive if the company liquidated everything at stated values.

Dilution occurs when a company issues new shares — through equity offerings, stock-based compensation, or convertible securities — reducing each existing shareholder's percentage ownership of the company.

Dividend yield is the annual dividend per share divided by the stock price, expressed as a percentage — it tells you how much income you receive for each dollar invested.

EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization — a measure of a company's operating profitability before non-cash charges and capital structure decisions.

Enterprise value (EV) is the total cost to acquire a company — market capitalization plus total debt, minority interest, and preferred equity, minus cash and equivalents.

The SEC classifies public companies into filer categories (large accelerated, accelerated, non-accelerated, and smaller reporting company) based on their public float, which determines filing deadlines and disclosure requirements.

Form 4 is an SEC filing that company insiders (officers, directors, and 10%+ shareholders) must submit within two business days of buying or selling company stock.

Free cash flow (FCF) is the cash a company generates from operations after subtracting capital expenditures — the money available for dividends, debt repayment, buybacks, or reinvestment.

A going concern warning is a statement by auditors that there is substantial doubt about a company's ability to continue operating for the next 12 months without additional financing or restructuring.

Insider trading refers to buying or selling a public company's stock by someone who has access to non-public information about the company. Legal insider trading is disclosed via SEC Form 4; illegal insider trading is a federal crime.

Market capitalization (market cap) is the total dollar value of a company's outstanding shares, calculated by multiplying the current stock price by the total number of shares.

A material weakness is a deficiency in a company's internal controls over financial reporting that creates a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement in the financial statements will not be prevented or detected.

The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) divides a company's stock price by its earnings per share, showing how much investors pay for each dollar of profit.

A proxy statement (DEF 14A) is the SEC filing companies send to shareholders before an annual meeting, disclosing executive compensation, director nominees, shareholder proposals, and voting procedures.

Revenue recognition is the accounting principle that determines when a company can record revenue on its income statement — not when cash is received, but when the performance obligation is satisfied.

A restricted stock unit (RSU) is a company's promise to deliver shares of stock to an employee after a vesting period, used as compensation and disclosed in proxy statements and 10-K filings.

EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) is the SEC's public database where all required filings from U.S. public companies are stored and searchable for free.

Short selling is borrowing shares from a broker and immediately selling them, with the obligation to buy them back later. The short seller profits if the stock price falls and loses if it rises.

A Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code is a four-digit number assigned by the SEC to every public company, categorizing it by industry based on its primary business activity.

A small-cap stock is a publicly traded company with a market capitalization between roughly $300 million and $2 billion, smaller than mid-cap and large-cap companies.