Comments on: SEC Interactive Data Conference Call

By: D L Andrews

D L Andrews — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:14:31 +0000

I have tried using the SEC XBRL Interactive Reporting web site.

As a retail investor I am very disappointed. Most comparisons attempted did not work. Even comparing a single company’s current year to prior year often didn’t work. Reports showed mathmatical errors. The size of some graphed information bore no relationship to the magnitude of values they were intended to project. Also, there is a limitation of only five companies at a time.

What is the cause of this type of problem and what is the SEC doing to address them?

By: Dividend Growth Investor

Dividend Growth Investor — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:47:12 +0000

My accounting professors in college were always excited about XBRL and how it will change the way external reporting works. I see now that what I learned really matters ;-)
Thanks for the article George!

By: Bob Schneider

Bob Schneider — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:33:01 +0000

I’m not surprised that the level of interest in XBRL among retail investors hasn’t been overwhelming. It’s kind of a geeky thing, and media coverage has been spotty and said little about the benefits to the average investor. For many reasons, not least that they have a hundred other things to worry about, I’m also not shocked equity analysts have been less than vociferous in demanding interactive data. But I am surprised that quantitative analysts haven’t spoken up. All the quants I’ve spoken to have been very enthusiastic, and it would seem that XBRL’s ability to make large amounts of company data much easier to massage dovetails perfectly with their needs.

Bob Schneider
Editor, Data Interactive (Hitachi’s XBRL blog)
http://hitachidatainteractive.com

By: SEC does first conference call with bloggers | IR Web Report

SEC does first conference call with bloggers | IR Web Report — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:58:30 +0000

[...] who had the brilliant idea for an EDGAR API, which would solve Bill’s problem, has written a comprehensive recap of the call, along with this conclusion: “I encourage the SEC to promote free accessibility, [...]

By: Greenspan Investment » Blog Archive » XBRLater Than Announced

Greenspan Investment » Blog Archive » XBRLater Than Announced — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:15:54 +0000

[...] FatPitchFinancials: My questions were along the same lines of thought as Bill Cara’s. I wanted to know if the recent [...]

By: XBRLater Than Announced » Hybrid News

XBRLater Than Announced » Hybrid News — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:16:41 +0000

[...] FatPitchFinancials: My questions were along the same lines of thought as Bill Cara’s. I wanted to know if the recent [...]

By: Micro

Micro — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:59:08 +0000

Thanks very much for the report on the SEC. Now, if they would totally outlaw paper submissions!

Micro
http://themicrokid.blogspot.com/

By: George

George — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:17:42 +0000

Thanks, Dominic. I really do hope the SEC provides some way of retrieving XBRL reports via a user friendly URL, particularly one that uses the company ticker. I think in addition to benefitting users, this will also take some of the burdon off of the SEC servers by lowering the number of search queries that they might receive.

I need to download the source code of the current XBRL data viewers to see how they work. There might already be an XBRL api that is described in the source code of these applications. I’ll let you know if I find anything.

By: Dominic Jones

Dominic Jones — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:50:20 +0000

Great report, George. Let’s hope good things come to those who ask ;-) Your API idea makes a lot of sense to me.