Methodology & Data Sources

How we build the dataset that powers every page on OpenCapital.

1. Primary data source

All fundamental financial data on OpenCapital is sourced from public filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission via EDGAR. We do not license data from any third-party vendor. Every reported number on a company profile, metric page, or earnings page is traceable back to a specific filing.

Coverage is limited to U.S.-listed equities — common shares and ADRs of operating companies that file 10-K and 10-Q reports. We do not currently cover private companies, foreign private issuers that only file 20-F, closed-end funds, or SPACs prior to their de-SPAC transaction.

2. Filing types we ingest

  • 10-K — annual report, audited financial statements, segment disclosures, business description, risk factors.
  • 10-Q — quarterly report, unaudited financial statements, segment disclosures.
  • 8-K — material events. The subset we use is the earnings press release, which gives us the headline numbers and guidance on the day they're announced — before the matching 10-Q is filed.

3. Where each number comes from

  • Line items in the financial statements — revenue, net income, operating cash flow, every balance-sheet item — come from the structured data the issuer attaches to its 10-K and 10-Q. The SEC requires companies to tag every reported number with a standard label (the XBRL format), and we read those tags directly. The number on our page is the same number in the same row of the company's own filing.
  • Headline numbers and guidance on earnings day — pulled from the earnings press release the company files as an 8-K. These are labeled as preliminary on earnings pages and replaced by the corresponding 10-Q values once that filing arrives a few weeks later.
  • Business descriptions and segment names — pulled from the narrative sections of the 10-K and refreshed each year when the new annual report is filed.

4. Calendar quarters, not fiscal quarters

Companies report on different fiscal calendars — Apple's fiscal Q1 ends in late December, Walmart's ends in April, most others end in March. Comparing them side by side using each company's own labels gets confusing fast. So on OpenCapital, every quarter is shown by the calendar quarter it actually falls in. "Q4 2024" means October–December 2024 regardless of whose books you're looking at.

The one place we surface the issuer's own fiscal label is on earnings (8-K) pages, since that's how the company itself announces the quarter. So an Apple earnings page covering the October–December 2024 period is shown as Q4 2024 in our tables and noted as the company's fiscal Q1 2025 in the press release context — both labels point to the same three months.

Trailing-twelve-month (TTM) values are computed as the sum of the four most recent reported quarters. For balance-sheet items like cash, debt, or total assets — which are a point in time rather than a flow — the displayed value is the latest reported balance, never summed.

5. Restatements & revisions

When an issuer restates a prior period — either to correct an error or to reflect a reporting-segment reorganization — we use the most recently filed value for that period. Historical pages therefore reflect the issuer's current view of its own past, which may differ from what was originally filed. The original 10-K or 10-Q link in our SEC filings list always points to the as-originally-filed document for users who need to reconcile.

6. Segment data

Segment-level revenue, operating income, and supplemental metrics are sourced from the segment footnote disclosures in each filing, where they exist as separately-tagged XBRL dimensions. We categorize segments into three dimensions:

  • Product — revenue split by product line or service category (e.g., Apple iPhone vs. Services).
  • Geographic — revenue split by region or country (e.g., Americas vs. Greater China).
  • Business — operating segments as defined by the issuer for management reporting (e.g., AWS vs. North America retail at Amazon).

When issuers reorganize their reporting segments, historical segment series may be reclassified by the issuer to maintain comparability — we adopt the issuer's restated history for the periods they provide, and leave a gap for periods they don't.

7. Currency

All values are displayed in the issuer's reporting currency, which for the universe we cover is U.S. dollars in the vast majority of cases. ADRs whose underlying issuer reports in a non-USD currency are shown in the reported currency. Market capitalization and share price are sourced from end-of-day market data and shown in USD.

8. Market data

Stock prices and shares outstanding used for market-cap calculations are sourced from end-of-day market data feeds and updated daily on U.S. trading days. Intraday prices are not shown on OpenCapital — every quoted price is an official close.

9. Update frequency

  • Filings. New 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K filings are ingested within minutes of being posted to EDGAR.
  • Earnings calendar. Expected report dates are refreshed daily from public corporate communications and exchange listings.
  • Market data. End-of-day prices and market caps update once per U.S. trading day after market close.

10. Known limitations

We try to be honest about what this dataset is and isn't:

  • U.S.-listed only. No coverage of issuers that file only 20-F or F-1, no foreign-exchange-listed-only equities.
  • XBRL tagging quality varies by issuer. Where issuers use uncommon or custom XBRL tags, occasional line items may be missing or misclassified. We continuously improve the mapping; if you spot something wrong, email support@opencapital.sh.
  • Segment coverage is uneven. Some issuers disclose only a single operating segment; others provide granular product, geographic, and business segments. We show what they report — we do not synthesize segment splits.
  • Not a real-time market data source. Numbers reflect filed periods, prices update once per day after the close. The site is built for fundamentals-driven investors forming or stress-testing a thesis, not for short-term trading.

11. Independence & affiliations

OpenCapital is independently operated and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, any issuer covered on the site, or any market data vendor. All filings data is reproduced under the SEC's public domain status as described in SEC privacy and information policies.

12. Corrections & questions

If you find a number on OpenCapital that disagrees with the underlying SEC filing, we want to fix it. Please email support@opencapital.sh with the ticker, metric, and a link to the filing — we typically respond within one business day. More on the project and the people behind it on the About page.