Thursday, May 10, 2018

In October 2016, Calcbench was delighted to attend a panel discussion at the Corporate Reporting Users Forum (CRUF), held in New York at the offices of Morgan Stanley.

At that meeting, a particularly noteworthy item was brought up by Simon Flannery of Morgan Stanley: he said it would be great if “firms filed their 10-Q within a day or two” of publishing their earnings releases.

That’s a good idea, we thought. So we examined the publishing behavior of firms around the quarter end, the Form 8-K earnings press release, and the publishing of the 10-Q. You can read that work in our blog post from that time.

Now we offer an update to that analysis here.

What We Found

We examined filings from January 2017 through April 30, 2018. The numbers of filings examined are in the table below:

10-Q Filings 10-K Filings
2017 11,511 3,482
2018 705 3,015

For annual reports, we listed the average number of days from period end to earnings press release as (you guessed it) Days to 8-K. The next column is the same measurement for period end to annual report filing. It implies, on average, a roughly 10 to 11-day lag time in both 2017 and 2018.

Days to 8K Days to 10K
2017 50.9 61.7
2018 51.5 61.9

In the quarterly report analysis you see a roughly 3 to 4-day delay.

Days to 8K Days to 10Q
2017 32.3 36.0
2018 33.6 37.0

Next we looked at SEC filer categories to get a more precise view of the data. As would be expected, larger firms (which typically have larger financial reporting teams and practices) are faster than the average firm. Large filers usually go about 45 days from the end of their fiscal year to the 8-K earnings release; and another 12 days after that until the 10-K is public — for a total of 57 days from end of fiscal year to 10-K filed.

The 10-Q filing times follow a similar pattern: 30 days from quarter end until 8-K, and then another four days until the 10-Q is released.


10-Ks Submitted in 2017
Days to 8K Days to 10K
Large Accelerated Filer 45.5 57.3
Accelerated Filer 54 63.9
Non-Accelerated Filer 53.6 63.6
Smaller Reporting Company 57.6 68.3
S&P 500 Firms 34.7 50.4
2017 Average 50.9 61.7

10-Ks Submitted in 2018
Days to 8K Days to 10K
Large Accelerated Filer 40.1 53.3
Accelerated Filer 51.4 62.8
Non-Accelerated Filer 55.3 62.5
Smaller Reporting Company 66.5 75.4
S&P 500 Firms 35.5 51.1
2018 Average 51.5 61.9

10-Qs Submitted in 2017
Days to 8K Days to 10Q
Large Accelerated Filer 30.1 34
Accelerated Filer 32.3 36.2
Non-Accelerated Filer 33.9 37
Smaller Reporting Company 34.5 38.7
S&P 500 Firms 27.1 31.7
2017 Average 32.3 36

10-Qs Submitted in 2018*

Days to 8K Days to 10Q
Large Accelerated Filer 28.6 32.6
Accelerated Filer 35.6 38.3
Non-Accelerated Filer 38.9 41.5
Smaller Reporting Company 37.7 41.3
S&P 500 Firms 33.6 37
2018 Average 33.6 37

* 2018 quarterly filings are currently a small sample size.

Given the data above, we compiled a list of “Fast S&P500 Filers” — those firms that filed earnings releases within 30 calendar days of their fiscal year-end date and their 10-Ks within 15 days after that. (Both 2018 and 2017 filings are in the list.)


Fast 10-K Filers

NVIDIA 2018
CSX CORP. 2018
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INC. 2018
KINDER MORGAN 2018
FASTENAL CO. 2018
SCHLUMBERGER LTD. 2018
KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN 2018
NETFLIX 2018
HALLIBURTON 2018
KIMBERLY-CLARK 2018
COMCAST 2018
FORD MOTOR CO. 2018
UNITED RENTALS 2018
UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORP. 2018
NORFOLK SOUTHERN 2018
GENERAL DYNAMICS 2018
WHIRLPOOL 2018
3M CO. 2018
NORTHROP GRUMMAN 2018
BIOGEN 2018
INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC. 2018
CELGENE CORP. 2018
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. 2018
UNION PACIFIC 2018
GALLAGHER ARTHUR J & CO 2018
HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL 2018
NORDSTROM 2018
SALESFORCE.COM 2018
PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP 2018
ALEXANDRIA REAL ESTATE EQUITIES 2018
LOCKHEED MARTINP 2018
NVIDIA 2017
DELTA AIR LINES 2017
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP 2017
NETFLIX 2017
KINDER MORGAN 2017
CISCO SYSTEMS 2017
FASTENAL CO. 2017
UNION PACIFIC 2017
SCHLUMBERGER LTD. 2017
KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN 2017
MICROSOFT 2017
ORACLE 2017
INTUIT 2017
HALLIBURTON 2017
KIMBERLY-CLARK 2017
LOCKHEED MARTIN 2017
CORNING 2017
ANALOG DEVICES 2017
STRYKER COR.P 2017
INTUITIVE SURGICAL 2017
EBAY 2017
XILINX 2017
SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY 2017
ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS 2017
UNITED RENTALS 2017
UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORP. 2017
F5 NETWORKS 2017
BOEING 2017
NORFOLK SOUTHERN CORP. 2017
FORD MOTOR CO. 2017
COMCAST 2017
ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER & CO 2017
CELGENE CORP. 2017
ROBERT HALF INTERNATIONAL 2017
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES 2017
PAYPAL HOLDINGS 2017
DOVER CORP./td> 2017
NORTHROP GRUMMAN 2017
T ROWE PRICE GROUP 2017
FRANKLIN RESOURCES 2017
PULTE GROUP 2017
BIOGEN 2017
ALPHABET INC. (GOOGLE) 2017
WHIRLPOOL CORP. 2017
KLA TENCOR CORP. 2017
AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING 2017
GENERAL DYNAMICS 2017
HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL 2017
PROCTER & GAMBLEo 2017
SALESFORCE.COM 2017
SYNOPSYS 2017
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