How Tickdelta works

The rules

• Only what was filed. Everything comes from SEC EDGAR: filings, their XBRL data, Form 4s, 13Fs, comment letters. Price charts are TradingView's own widget; no number on this site is computed from prices.
• Quotes are exact. A quote is the filing's own words, cut only at sentence ends, and links to the filing, usually straight to the sentence.
• Numbers are computed in code, not by AI. Each number links to the XBRL line item or the filing it comes from. AI is used only in the Ask tab, where every quote in an answer is checked word for word against the filing and marked ✓ or ✗, and for optional plain-language notes, which are labelled.
• No scores, ratings or predictions. We show what changed and where it says so. We do not say whether a stock is good, cheap or about to move. The next section is why. The five-sided shape (below) ranks a company's reported figures against the others we cover: it shows where the filings place it, not a buy score.

What did not work

Tickdelta started as a set of stock signals. Before showing them, we tested whether they predicted returns: 50 large companies, every month-end from January 2015 to June 2026, each signal rebuilt from only the filings available on that day, and the return over the next 3, 6 and 12 months compared with the S&P 500 (SPY).

• Insider buying (a 0-100 score from the number of buyers, the amount and the timing): companies with buying did no better than the rest (−0.3 points over 3 months, p = 0.71). We stopped showing the score; the purchases themselves are still listed.
• Accounting flags (receivables or inventory growing faster than revenue, cash flow below net income, auditor change, restatement): flagged companies did not do worse. If anything they did slightly better, and no result was significant.
• How much the 10-K changed: the companies whose 10-K changed most did better, not worse, over 12 months (p = 0.04). With 39 tests and few independent cases, one p below 0.05 is what luck alone produces, so we do not use it either.

The test has limits: 50 of today's survivors (none went bankrupt, which is when accounting flags should matter most), and few independent events. It is enough to say these are not reliable signals, so they are shown as facts to read, not as reasons to trade.

How each finding is made

New risk factors

A paragraph of this year's Risk Factors (10-K item 1A) is new when no paragraph of last year's shares at least half of its words, with digits ignored. Edited paragraphs are not counted as new. It cannot tell an important new risk from new wording of an old one. A five-minute guide to reading one.

Accounting checks

Six checks on the latest 10-K's XBRL and the 8-Ks: receivables or inventory growing more than 10 points faster than revenue, cash from operations below net income (not for banks and insurers), an auditor change (8-K item 4.01 or a new name in the 10-K), going concern language, and a restatement (8-K item 4.02). Each is a reason to read the filing, not a finding of wrongdoing.

10-K change

Risk Factors, MD&A, Legal Proceedings and the accounting policies note, compared with last year's 10-K paragraph by paragraph, with digits masked so new years and amounts in an unchanged sentence do not count.

Revised numbers

A number in a 10-K (revenue, operating income, net income, cash from operations, total assets, equity, receivables, inventory) that a later 10-K reports differently for the same year and line item, by 0.5% or more, fiscal years of the last 6 years. It is a restatement only when the company filed an 8-K item 4.02; otherwise it is a recast (a business sold, a new accounting rule, amounts moved between lines). The later 10-K's notes say which.

Said vs did

Targets are read from the sentences of the earnings releases (8-K item 2.02, exhibit 99) of the last 3 years, such as "expects full year revenue of $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion", and compared with the number later reported in the 10-Q or 10-K for the same period, as first reported. A floor or a cap ("at least $1.2 billion", "no more than $300 million") is shown as such and checked as kept or not kept. Company-defined measures (adjusted EPS, free cash flow, and for real estate companies FFO and AFFO, per share or in total) have no standard number and are not scored: their targets are shown with how they changed. A bullet under an outlook line ("For fiscal year 2026, the company expects:") is read and quoted with that line. A sentence that gives several targets ("revenue of $5.0 to $5.2 billion, and adjusted EPS of $5.10 to $5.30") gives each of them. In outlook tables, one column is read, and only where it gives a range: the first, or the current one where the table also shows the previous target. A cell or label that wraps onto the next line is read with it. Tables of results are not read, and a target given after its period ended is not shown.

Targets dropped quietly

A full-year target is marked dropped when the next earnings release (at least 45 days later, before that year ended) gives other targets for the same year but has no outlook sentence about this one and does not say the guidance is unchanged. This is deliberately strict, so it finds few cases; a target that moved into a table can still look dropped, so read both releases.

Adjusted vs GAAP

GAAP and adjusted earnings per share as each earnings release states them in words, usually in the highlights, with both sentences linked. We do not compute or adjust anything: the company decides what "adjusted" leaves out, and we quote its own sentence saying what. Quarters where the numbers appear only in a table are not shown.

Top officer changes

8-Ks with item 5.02 are read for the CEO, CFO, COO and chief accounting officer. A role counts only when the sentence moves someone into or out of it ("will resign as Chief Executive Officer"), not when it is mentioned in passing ("reporting to the Chief Executive Officer"). The first such sentence is quoted.

Segment changes

The latest 10-K's own sentence saying its reportable segments were realigned, quoted, and the segments with revenue in its XBRL compared with those of the 10-K before it. After a change, past years are usually recast, so growth by segment is not comparable with what earlier reports showed.

SEC comment letters

The staff's letters (form UPLOAD) and the company's answers (CORRESP) of the last 20 years, matched by their numbered questions and grouped into reviews. SEC publishes them at least 20 business days after a review ends, so they are never current. A question is not an accusation.

Insider trades and institutional owners

Form 4s as filed (an open-market purchase is code P; grants, exercises and plan sales are shown as such). 13F holdings are quarterly and filed up to 45 days after the quarter, so they are always at least that old.

The shape on the home page

Five sides, each from 0 to 100 against every other company we cover. Growth: the rank of sales growth in the last fiscal year. Profit: the rank of net margin. Balance sheet: the rank of debt to equity, less is better, and equity below zero counts as the weakest. Clean books: the share of the six accounting checks above that are clear. Insiders: 60 when insiders bought shares on the open market in the last 90 days, plus 40 when a superinvestor holds the stock. A side with no number is drawn at the centre. Banks and insurers borrow by design, so their balance-sheet side is small. The shape shows relative position on reported figures; it is not a buy score, a rating or advice. On a company's Overview the shape is drawn over the median of its peer group, and each number below it shows every company of the group as a dot, ordered so the right end is the better one (more growth and margin, less debt, a lower P/E).

The three health cards on a company's Overview

Each tick is one fixed rule on the numbers above; a rule without its numbers is left out, not failed. Profitability: net margin at or above the peer group's median; gross margin up over five years (or as many as there are, at least three); return on equity of 15% or more; a profit in every fiscal year shown. Balance sheet: operating income at least 5 times interest expense; debt smaller than equity (equity below zero fails); current ratio of 1 or more; more cash than debt, or net debt under 3 years of free cash flow. Cash and shareholders: free cash flow positive in every year shown; fewer diluted shares than five years before; a higher dividend per share than five years before (left out when there is no dividend); cash from operations at least net income in the last year. The count on each card is how many rules hold. It is not a score and not advice.

Where each dollar goes, and what the debt is made of

Bands whose width is the money. Sales: revenue by product, segment or region from the 10-K's segment tables, into gross profit and cost of revenue, then net income, operating costs, and interest, tax and other items, from the income statement of the last fiscal year. Shown only when net income is positive and below gross profit. Debt: long-term debt, the part due within a year and short-term debt as tagged on the balance sheet, on the left; the principal due each year from the debt note's maturity schedule on the right. Leases are not counted. Below it, the debt note's own lines from the 10-K's XBRL, as the company tags them (by issue, year, currency or kind), with the stated or weighted rate tagged for each. Fixed or floating comes only from the line's own name ("fixed-rate notes", "floating rate notes", "term loan", "commercial paper"); a line whose name says neither is "not stated". Lines from two ways of cutting the same debt can overlap, so they are not added up, and a line that equals the others added up is marked as their total. Years: the flow is drawn for each of the last five fiscal years; revenue by part only where the last two 10-Ks' segment tables reach.

Dilution: new shares, stock pay and buybacks

Shares offered: every S-3 (shelf registration) and 424B prospectus of the last three years in the filing index, read from its cover page in code. Each is put in one kind by the words on the cover: an at-the-market program ("sales agreement", "equity distribution agreement"), a sale of new shares, preferred stock, convertible notes or convertible preferred stock, shares for a merger or in exchange for units or notes, shares for a dividend reinvestment or employee plan, shares registered for other holders to sell (the company gets no new shares), an update to an earlier prospectus, or notes. The amount ("aggregate offering price of up to $…", or the number of shares) and the sentence that says it are taken word for word; hover an offering for its sentence. Preliminary prospectus supplements are left out because the final one follows within days. 424B2s are left out (they are notes), and so are 424B3s at a company that files more than 30 in three years (banks file them for structured notes). An at-the-market program is how much the company may sell over time, not what it sold. A shelf registration of a large company usually names no amount. Stock pay, buybacks and cash from shares sold: the cash flow statement of the 10-K (the same numbers as the Cash & buybacks tab). Diluted shares: the weighted average of each fiscal year against the year before, stock splits taken out. What's new, the feed and the email alerts list a new at-the-market program, sale of shares, preferred or convertible offering and shelf registration for shares on the day it is read.

Who owns it, and what the price paid

Institutions: shares held by every 13F filer in the latest quarter over shares outstanding (13Fs are up to 45 days old). Superinvestors: the followed investors who hold it. Insiders: Form 4 rows of the last twelve months coded P (bought) and S (sold), shares times price; grants, exercises and gifts are left out. 13D filers: Schedule 13Ds of the last twelve months. Valuation by year (only with licensed prices): the close on or just before each fiscal year end over that year's diluted EPS, revenue per diluted share and free cash flow per diluted share. A multiple, not a fair value.

Known limits

• Companies tag the same item with different XBRL names; each number tries a list of names, and a company that uses another one shows a blank.
• Text read with patterns misses what is phrased in an unusual way and, rarely, picks up something that only looks like the pattern. That is why every finding carries its quote: check it.
• Filings are checked once a day, so a filing can take until the next update to appear. The date of the last update is in the footer.
• Coverage is the S&P 500 plus companies that hold crypto. Others can be requested on the page of their ticker.

Mistakes

When something is wrong, use Report a mistake at the bottom of any page. Every confirmed mistake is listed, with what changed, in the corrections log.