Official SEC XML Feeds

Thank you SEC! It’s not often that I feel compelled to thank a federal regulator, especially around tax time, but I am really excited by a new feature of the SEC EDGAR database. This weekend I spotted orange XML feed images all over EDGAR, like the one in the screenshot below of the company page for Western Sizzlin (WEST).

At first I thought those little orange XML graphics linked to RSS feeds, but they are actually Atom feeds. They open properly in Internet Explorer 7, but IE6 requests that you save the feed. I recommend using Google Reader to keep track of the SEC EDGAR feeds that you are interested in tracking.

In addition to the feeds appearing for company searches, it also looks like they are also available for the Latest Filings. That means you can also get them by filing type, such as this latest 10-K query. Sadly, the feeds are not available for full text searches or historical EDGAR archives searches yet.

I’m guessing a couple of commercial EDGAR providers are going to be losing some business as a result of this, since many were paying to get these type of feeds. I feel sorry for Joe Ponzio since he recently spent money on a programmer to create the SEC feed feature on his site. There is no more need for that feature now.

This new feature kind of caught me be surprise. I can’t even find an official announcement of this feature on the SEC site. Let us know if you find out any more information about this new XML feeds feature.