Comments on: The future of SEC filings… http://www.footnoted.com/sec-stuff/the-future-of-sec-filings/ Morningstar's guide to what's hiding in SEC filings Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:16:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: billm http://www.footnoted.com/sec-stuff/the-future-of-sec-filings/comment-page-1/#comment-6064 billm Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:26:04 +0000 http://www.footnoted.com/?p=2310#comment-6064 It will be interesting to see what effect this will have on services like Edgar-Online (among others, including my own), since in theory this duplicates a lot of the functionality. Of course, the history of large govt tech projects is not great, so we'll have to see. It will be interesting to see what effect this will have on services like Edgar-Online (among others, including my own), since in theory this duplicates a lot of the functionality. Of course, the history of large govt tech projects is not great, so we’ll have to see.

]]> By: Michelle Leder http://www.footnoted.com/sec-stuff/the-future-of-sec-filings/comment-page-1/#comment-6063 Michelle Leder Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:28:08 +0000 http://www.footnoted.com/?p=2310#comment-6063 During the Q&A session, Cox took questions via email, including this one that I had sent in: Q: The examples of information (mutual fund fees and compensation) that Chairman Cox just demoed are already pretty widely available on any number of free sites (Yahoo Finance! Google, Morningstar). What are some other uses you envision of useful information contained in filings that are now only available via subscription, and sometimes very expensive subscriptions that most individual investors are not able to afford/have access to? A: This is going to significantly enhance what type of information is already provided to investors for free. We're all going to get an upgrade. Let's say you want to compare stock option compensation for all companies across an industry....Or fuel costs as a percentage of revenues. As fast as you can think them up, you can use the data. And the real power is that you can do this just as easily for 100 companies as you can for two companies, so it's easy to envision lots of useful information. The recap starts at around 37 minutes, if you want to listen to it directly <a href="http://www.connectlive.com/events/secnews/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. During the Q&A session, Cox took questions via email, including this one that I had sent in:

Q: The examples of information (mutual fund fees and compensation) that Chairman Cox just demoed are already pretty widely available on any number of free sites (Yahoo Finance! Google, Morningstar).

What are some other uses you envision of useful information contained in filings that are now only available via subscription, and sometimes very expensive subscriptions that most individual investors are not able to afford/have access to?

A: This is going to significantly enhance what type of information is already provided to investors for free. We’re all going to get an upgrade. Let’s say you want to compare stock option compensation for all companies across an industry….Or fuel costs as a percentage of revenues. As fast as you can think them up, you can use the data. And the real power is that you can do this just as easily for 100 companies as you can for two companies, so it’s easy to envision lots of useful information.

The recap starts at around 37 minutes, if you want to listen to it directly here.

]]> By: Don http://www.footnoted.com/sec-stuff/the-future-of-sec-filings/comment-page-1/#comment-6061 Don Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:13:41 +0000 http://www.footnoted.com/?p=2310#comment-6061 Since the SEC changed how executive compensation is reported, they have really confused what a "bonus" is. I think most normal people are looking at that column in the compensation table to find out what annual bonus was paid to an executive. However, that information is located in the "Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation" column. "Bonus" only means a discretionary amount of money paid, outside of the annual bonus plan. The SEC's new compensation disclosure leads to clutter and confusion, not more clarity. Since the SEC changed how executive compensation is reported, they have really confused what a “bonus” is. I think most normal people are looking at that column in the compensation table to find out what annual bonus was paid to an executive. However, that information is located in the “Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation” column. “Bonus” only means a discretionary amount of money paid, outside of the annual bonus plan. The SEC’s new compensation disclosure leads to clutter and confusion, not more clarity.

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