Insights
Short, factual pieces about what the filings show — how the numbers are built, where they differ from headlines, what the data says sector by sector. No forecasts and no recommendations.
The exchange rate is part of the number
Some companies here keep their books in euros, yen or Canadian dollars. Their dollar figures move when the currency moves, even in a year when the business did not. Both rates come from the filings.
Where the cash goes
Once a company has produced cash, it reports what it did with it: plant, research, dividends, buybacks. The shape of that split is a sector fingerprint, and both tables are computed from the filings.
Why profit is not cash
A company's profit and the cash it actually generated are different numbers, and in some sectors they are not even close. Both tables are computed from the filings.
How concentrated are company profits?
Across the companies in this catalogue, a small number account for most of the profit reported to the SEC, and many report none at all. Both tables are computed from the filings.
How we found our own error: a margin that could not exist
A ranking on this site was wrong for months and looked right the whole time. The thread that unravelled it was one impossible number, and it changed 84 figures.
Why a figure here can differ from the press release
Restatements, fiscal years that do not match the calendar, currency conversion and gross-versus-net revenue: the four honest reasons a number on this site may not match the one in a headline.
Three tags for one number: where "revenue" actually comes from in a 10-K
US companies report revenue under several different XBRL tags. Which tags they use, how often, and how a data site has to reconcile them — with the live distribution across this catalogue.
Which sectors keep the most of each dollar? Net margin by sector, from the filings
Median net margin by sector among SEC filers with at least $1 billion in revenue, computed from each company's own annual filing. Updated with every data refresh.