SEC filing data methodology

Official source

The source is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Narwhal uses company associations, submissions metadata, and EDGAR filing indexes.

Responses link to SEC filing-index and primary-document pages. Filing bodies and exhibits are not included.

Company identity

• One opaque Narwhal company_id is permanent route identity.
• CIK, ticker, exchange, current name, former names, entity type, and SIC are source attributes or aliases.
• A ticker can change or be reused, so it never becomes permanent resource identity.
• Nullable source fields stay null. Narwhal does not infer a missing listing, industry, or entity classification.

Filing identity and amendments

• Accession number is global filing identity.
• One accession can relate to more than one company; Narwhal stores the filing once and preserves explicit company relationships.
• Form, filing date, UTC acceptance time, nullable report period, amendment state, 8-K items, and source links remain separate fields.
• A requested base form such as 10-K can include 10-K/A; callers can exclude amendments or request an amendment form explicitly.
• Results sort by acceptance time descending, then accession number descending.

Complete publication

Search, identity, and filings read from one accepted publication head. Collection responses include one as_of time, and cursors are bound to that snapshot and the original filters.

A failed fetch, parse, validation, or reconciliation run cannot publish a partial snapshot. The previous complete publication remains authoritative until a newer candidate passes every check.

Update design

Recent filing discovery is reconciled against official bulk submissions and filing indexes. Public freshness is not published yet.

First-release limits

The first slice returns issuer identity and filing metadata. It does not provide filing bodies, exhibits, full-text search, XBRL facts, CUSIP data, security-master data, financial statements, insider transactions, current insider holdings, 13F portfolios, alerts, or trading signals.

The launch cohort is based on an accepted SEC ticker-and-CIK association snapshot. It is not a claim that every returned issuer has an active exchange listing or that every SEC filer is covered.

See the SEC filings API reference and coverage.