edgar

A command line utility to locally index and download filings from the SEC Edgar database.

Features

edgar builds a local Postgres database of forms on SEC Edgar and then allows you to download forms using queries based on any combination of CIK, company name, form type (e.g. 10-K), start date, and end date. It is also possible to download forms by the internal identifier in the database. edgar --help provides information on all commands/sub-commands. Downloads are run in parallel enabling edgar to download data efficiently.

Installation

1. edgar application

   a. Download and install Haskell Stack.

   b. Clone this repository

   c. CD to the local repository directory and type stack install.

   d. On occasion, stack may temporarily fail on the install due to the way it handles parallel installation of dependencies. Just run stack install again and it will pick up where it left off.

2. Install Postgres and create a database to hold your form index, e.g., create database edgar.

3. On the command line type edgar init. You will need to specify a path if you did not use the default database name (i.e. edgar). See getting help below.

Creating and updating your form index

The form index is housed in Postgres. edgar will keep your index up to date. Each quarter, simply type edgar update START END. START and END are year-quarters, each specified as YYYYqQ. For example, 1999 quarter 2 is as 1999q2. edgar maintains unique indexes and will not duplicate forms should you run the update command multiple times on the same year-quarter.

Downloading forms

There are two modes to download forms. You may either specify conditions that forms needs to satisfy or list IDs from the database.

1. Conditional: Type edgar download query --help to see a list of conditions. You may download using any combination of CIK, company name, form type, start date, and end date. For multiple possible CIKs, company names, or form types, simply specify multiple option arguments.

2. ID: Type edgar download id ID1 ID2 ... where IDX is the internal id identifier from the forms table in the edgar Postgres database.

edgar supports simultaneous downloads (default is 4). See --help.

Getting help

edgar --help will provide help on usage. Each sub-command provides individualized help. For example, to get help on downloading, type edgar download --help.

Development status

edgar is under active development. However, I may not notice issues arising from changes to the SEC website immediately, as I access data intermittently. Should an issue arise, please post an Issue and I will endeavor to fix it.

Revision history

• 0.1.1.2

  • download subcommand now recognizes already downloaded forms that are stored compressed. Use the --zip-extension option to specify the appropriate compressed extension, e.g., --zip-extension=zst.
  • download subcommand may be limited to a specific number of forms using --limit option. This may be useful when downloaded a large number of forms by switching to a loop over a smaller number.

• 0.1.1.1

  • Edgar's download subcommand updated due to changes to the SEC website. Previously only the index files were throttled, affecting the update subcommand. Now, forms are throttled, necessitating that the user provide an email address as part of the user agent in HTML requests. This subcommand now requires an email "address".

• 0.1.1.0

  • Edgar's Update subcommand updated due to changes to the SEC website. The program was receiving "throttling" errors from the SEC because it was not providing an email address as part of the user agent in HTML requests. The subcommand now requires an email "address".
  • Minor bug fix to strip quotation marks from company names, which were not compatible with Postgres without escaping.