The Incremental Information Content of SEC 10-K Reports Filed under the EDGAR System

Abstract

This paper examines the incremental information content of disclosures in the 10-K reports filed with the SEC through the EDGAR system with a research design that explicitly controls for cross-sectional differences in the informativeness of current and prior disclosures. More specifically, we investigate (1) whether stock returns exhibit abnormal behavior when the 10-K reports are filed with the SEC through the EDGAR system and (2) whether there exist preemptive and delayed market responses to disclosures in these reports. We also run tests for the pre-EDGAR 10-K reports submitted through the paper filing system to compare our results with those of prior studies. Our empirical results indicate that the 10-K report filed through the EDGAR system contains incremental information while the 10-K report filed through the prior paper filing system does not. This provides empirical evidence in support of the advantage of the EDGAR system over the previous paper filing system in disseminating information to investors in a timely fashion.