1. EDGAR

If you're not already using EDGAR, start using EDGAR. This is by far the simplest way to find financial filings for public companies. There's other useful features you can utilize too, like searching for specific document types - like 10-K's or 10-12B's.

2. SEC as a search engine

In most browsers (except Firefox) you're able to set custom search engines that allow you to directly search for something on another website using the browser's address bar. An example use case of this is a search engine for YouTube, which can let you type "yt" in the address bar followed by whatever video you're looking for, then you'd be taken to the YouTube website as if you actually searched for it there.

I like to use it for the SEC's Company Search. Now when I create a new tab and type "sec aapl" in the address bar, it takes me directly to Apple's company search page. I should note that if a company has recently gone public or changed their ticker recently, it might not work. Or you can search by the CIK code for a company and type that instead of the ticker. Up to you.

The process for setting this up is fairly simple on Google Chrome. Go to your browser's settings and navigate to search engines, then manage search engines and site search, and then find where you can add one under site search. That should bring you to a pop-up where you can type in the name, shortcut, and URL of the site. The name and shortcut can be whatever you want but the shortcut is what you type in the address bar to activate the search. Here's the url I use to access the company search:

The "%s" in the URL represents where the search term will go in the final URL.

3. RSS feeds

An RSS feed is a pretty cool tool that allows you to keep up with updates to a website. A lot of websites that publish things, like newsletters or podcasts, have RSS feeds that you can subscribe to and get notified when something new gets posted. In some cases, you can read the article directly from the feed. The SEC offers RSS feeds for individual companies which will update you anytime the company files something with the SEC. The RSS feed won't deliver the filing directly to you but the feed will contain a link to the filing on the SEC's website. Still, it's very handy for keeping up with a company's filings.

There are dedicated RSS readers out there but if you're still using the classic version of Outlook, it has a built-in RSS reader that works fine.

4. Stylus and Dark Reader

Stylus is an add-in for Google Chrome that allows you to create a CSS file that applies to specific web pages. A CSS file is basically the document that tells a web page exactly how it's going to look: what colors it should use, how big the font is, and a lot more. Using Stylus, you can make a financial filing a lot easier to read and a lot easier on the eyes.

If you've ever read 10-K's online, you know that unless you're looking at the PDF version, the text will stretch all the way across the entire screen, no matter how wide it is. With Stylus I'm able to set a maximum width to the area the text falls in, so it's closer to the size of a sheet of paper. It makes it easier to read because your eyes don't have to track across the entire screen. I also set the line spacing to 1.75x so each paragraph has more space to breathe. These two changes alone make a huge difference in reading any financial filing. Here's what the CSS code looks like:

          
body {
  max-width:   /*[[page-width]]*/ 8.5in !important;
  width:       100% !important;
  margin:      2rem auto !important;
  padding:     2.50rem 2.75rem !important;
}
          
        

Basically, the maximum width sets the limit for how far across the screen the text is allowed to stretch and the "auto" part of the margin setting centers the document on the screen.

My last change is picky. I changed the font so it inherits whatever default font I set in Google Chrome. I'm a big fan of Apple's New York serif font. I think it beats Times New Roman in financial filings because it's a little more readable in small sizes. It's also nice to look at.

If you take anything from this article, it's that you should use Stylus if you're reading the html version of SEC documents.

Dark Reader is another add-in for Google Chrome that allows you to turn any page to dark mode or turn on an adjustable Sepia filter. If you're staring at a plain white 10-K for hours in the dark this might be a good idea so you can save your eyes the pain. Remember folks, your monitor should be about as bright as a sheet of paper.

5. Vimium

Vimium is another browser add in. This one makes keyboard-only browsing easier, which is nice for reading articles and filings and stuff. The keybindings are based on the text editing program, Vim. The arrow keys become 'h', 'j', 'k', and 'l' for left, down, up, and right. It takes some getting used to but it helps you navigate without moving your hand away from the home row. When using Vimium, if you press 'f', it allows you to press a series of keys to navigate to a link on the page.

I don't think I'd recommend it unless you've actually used Vim, though.

6. Inline viewer javascript

This tip might reveal how lazy I am but it solves a very specific problem that I might be the only one to have. When you open an SEC filing, sometimes it'll open in the XBRL Inline Viewer. That's sometimes nice, it has a sidebar that lets you jump to different sections like a table of contents and it lets you click on specific figures to see what section of the FASB accounting rules that number is relevant to. It can also really, really slow down filings that are especially large (looking at you, Citi Bank).

I recently found out that you're able to run javascript code for any page that'll affect how it looks or works for you. So, I created a bookmark in my browser that executes some javascript whenever I click it. It takes the url for the current page and tries to find 'ix?doc=/' and takes it out of the url. All that does is turn the filing into the plain html version instead of the inline viewer. Also, with Vimium, I can press 'b' and then type in the name of the bookmark, which would be the same as clicking it. I've probably saved a cumulative 30 seconds of my life with that little trick.

If you have this very specific problem, here's the code for the bookmark I use: