GLOSSARY // Fundamentals
Form 10-K
A Form 10-K is the audited annual report every US public company must file with the SEC, covering a full fiscal year of financial statements, risk factors, and management commentary. Filing deadlines run 60 days after fiscal year end for large accelerated filers, 75 for accelerated filers, and 90 for everyone else.
The 10-K is the deepest public look at a company you can get for free. Item 1A lists the risks management is legally required to disclose, Item 7 (the MD&A) explains the year in management's own words, and Item 8 holds the audited financials. The audit is what separates it from a press release: an independent accounting firm signs off on the numbers.
Traders skim the press release; analysts read the 10-K. Customer concentration, debt covenants, pending litigation, and segment-level margins usually live only in the filing.
A software company's earnings release headlines $4.2B in revenue, up 18%. Its 10-K, filed three weeks later, discloses in Item 1A that one customer accounts for 38% of that revenue and its contract is up for renewal in eight months. The press release never mentioned it. That single paragraph reprices the growth story.
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Educational only — not financial advice. Definitions simplified for clarity; markets are messier than definitions.