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MARKETS / METHODOLOGY

How these numbers are made

Extracted from the filing, checked against itself, and published with the holes still showing.

Where it comes from

The source is the filing itself

Every figure on this site comes from the documents companies file with the SEC — the annual 10-K and its equivalents for foreign issuers. No third-party feed, no house estimate. Each value keeps the accounting tag and the accession number of the filing it came from.

How it is checked

255,071 checks per run

Before publication every company goes through proofs that compare its own numbers against each other: the balance sheet has to close, earnings per share has to match profit divided by shares, gross profit has to be revenue minus cost. What does not reconcile is published with a mark, never hidden.

What is missing, on purpose

A declared hole beats a guess

Four numbers people come looking for are deliberately absent: price-to-earnings, market capitalisation, dividend yield and price-to-book. All four need a market quote, each in a different place: price-to-earnings and price-to-book put the quote over earnings or book value per share, market capitalisation multiplies it by the share count, dividend yield divides the payout by it — and a quote is not a filed figure. Estimating one to complete the calculation would turn audited accounting into a guess, and the guess would look exactly like the rest of the page. So the number is absent, and says so.

Comparisons that do not hold are refused too. Where a stock split sits between two years, the ends of the series are not comparable, and the change is simply not computed.

Every metric, defined

The glossary

Each entry states the formula, the inputs and — the part most glossaries skip — what the number does not tell you.

Coverage

5,231 companies

The universe covers companies with structured filings at the SEC, including foreign issuers reporting under IFRS. Funds, blank-check vehicles, warrants, preferred shares and listed debt are excluded — they carry the issuer's accounts but they are not the share.