Every publicly traded company in the United States is legally required to publish its financial statements. They're free, they're online, and anyone can read them. This resource shows you how to find them.
You'll spend the next three units studying each of the three financial statements in depth. Right now, you just need to know they exist, where they live, and how to get to them without getting lost.
Why Do Companies Publish Their Financials?
If you buy stock in a company, you own a piece of it. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires public companies to regularly publish financial reports so investors can see how the business is actually doing. No secrets, no guessing. Anyone with an internet connection can look up exactly how much revenue Apple earned last year or how much debt Nike carries.
This matters far beyond stock investing. Lenders use these reports to decide whether to give a company a loan. Employees use them to evaluate a job offer. Competitors study them to understand the market. Journalists use them to verify what companies claim in press releases. If you work in any corner of business, you'll eventually need to read one.
The Three Financial Statements
Public companies publish three main financial statements. Each answers a different question about the business:
That's it. Three statements, three questions. You don't need to memorize anything about them right now. Units 4, 5, and 6 each go deep on one statement. This unit is just about finding them.
How to Find a Company's Financial Statements
Option 1: The Company's Investor Relations Page (Start Here)
Most public companies have an "Investor Relations" section on their website. It's the fastest path to their financial filings.
These pages look different from company to company. Apple's is sleek and polished. Berkshire Hathaway's is famously bare-bones, just a list of links on a white page from the 1990s. Both contain the same legally required information.
Most IR pages default to showing "All Filings," which is mostly administrative paperwork you don't need. Look for a filter or dropdown to narrow to "Annual Filings" or "10-K." That cuts through the noise.
Option 2: SEC EDGAR (The Official Database)
EDGAR is the SEC's public database of every filing from every public company. If you can't find what you need on the company's website, EDGAR always has it.
Burger King doesn't file its own annual report. Its parent company, Restaurant Brands International, does. Google doesn't file under "Google." It files under Alphabet Inc. Instagram is inside Meta Platforms' filing. If you search for a brand and get nothing, Google "[brand name] parent company SEC filing."
Inside a 10-K: Don't Panic
A 10-K is long. Often 80 to 150 pages. Most of it is legal text, risk disclosures, and accounting policies you don't need right now. The financial statements take up only about 4-5 pages, buried somewhere in the middle.
Here's how to find them fast:
The statements appear in order, each on its own page: first the balance sheet, then the income statement, then the cash flow statement (order varies slightly by company). They're labeled clearly, something like "Consolidated Statements of Income" or "Consolidated Balance Sheets."
Three Things That Trip People Up
- Watch the units. Check the top of each statement for a note like "(in thousands)" or "(in millions)." If a statement says "in thousands" and shows 11,925,601, that's not $11.9 million. It's $11.9 billion. This is the single most common mistake.
- Labels vary between companies. Apple says "Net sales" where Chipotle says "Total revenue" and Nike says "Revenues." Same concept, different words. Look at where the line sits on the statement (revenue is always at the top, net income always at the bottom) rather than relying on exact wording.
- Fiscal years aren't always January to December. Chipotle's fiscal year ends December 31. Apple's ends in late September. Nike's ends May 31. The filing tells you exactly what period it covers, right at the top of each statement.
Why Can't I Just Ask ChatGPT?
AI tools are confidently wrong about financial data. They generate plausible-looking numbers that can be off by billions. In 2023, Bloomberg tested ChatGPT on Tesla's quarterly revenue and found it produced specific dollar amounts that were completely fictional.
If you're making a decision about whether to invest in a company, the difference between $50 billion and $65 billion in revenue matters. For this unit and for the rest of this course, find it yourself in the actual filings. That's the skill.