EDGAR-Analyzer: automating the analysis of corporate data contained in the SEC's EDGAR database

Publicly owned companies, their officers and major investors are required to file regular disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). To improve accessibility to these public documents, the SEC began developed the EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval) electronic disclosure system. This system provides ready, free access to all electronic filings made since 1994. The paper describes a tool that automates the analysis of SEC filings, emphasizing the unstructured text sections of these documents. To illustrate the capabilities of the EDGAR-Analyzer program, results of a largescale case study of corporate Y2K disclosures in 18,595 10K filings made from 1997 to 1999 is presented. D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.