10-k

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires that all publicly traded companies file a Form 10-k every year. The filing date, ranging from 60 to 90 days after the end of a company's fiscal year, depends on the value of the publicly held shares.

The 10-k discloses detailed information about a company's finances, including total sales, sales by product line or division for the past five years, revenue, operating income, earnings per share, and equity, as well as other corporate information such as by-laws, organizational structure, holdings, subsidiaries, lawsuits in which the company is involved, and the company's history.

A company's Form 10-k becomes public information once it is filed, and you can find the report in the SEC's EDGAR database. As an investor, you can learn more about a company from its 10-k than from its less detailed annual report.