Data sources
Where each block of data comes from, how often it is queried, and what wins when two sources disagree. The history of the accounts always comes from the company's own filing with the SEC.
SEC EDGAR
Official site ↗Primary source of the history
- What it provides
- The as-reported XBRL data of each 10-K: income statement, cash flow, balance sheet, shares, declared dividend and filing dates, plus the legal name, declared sector, reporting currency and fiscal year-end month. It is what underpins the ~18 years of history, and the only part checkable against a public document.
- How often
- Extended when the company files a new 10-K.
Financial Modeling Prep
Official site ↗Estimates and market backup
- What it provides
- Analyst consensus estimates for the coming years — the columns marked "E" in the tables — and part of the market snapshot when the primary price source doesn't respond.
- How often
- Weekly for the estimates.
Finnhub
Official site ↗The present-day context
- What it provides
- Company news, the earnings calendar, insider transactions and sentiment, the trend in analyst recommendations, and part of the market snapshot. None of this feeds into the financial statements.
- How often
- News, calendar and insiders daily; recommendations monthly.
What wins when sources disagree
Each figure has a fixed chain of sources, and the underlying rule is a single one: in the financial statements, EDGAR wins whenever it has the figure. What it doesn't cover — the company doesn't report that concept, or doesn't file under us-gaap — is filled in cell by cell from complementary market sources, never the other way round, and a reported figure is never overwritten with a third party's version.
Outside the statements there is nothing EDGAR can supply: price, market cap, analyst consensus and news are not in a 10-K. Those blocks are resolved by a cascade across the providers above and complementary market sources, with a precedence criterion per block (historical depth for price, precision for the snapshot). The exact field-by-field ordering is not published.
A source going down doesn't take the page with it: the chain moves to the next candidate and, if none responds, the block degrades to empty rather than showing a made-up value. Context blocks — news, calendar, insiders — disappear cleanly when their provider fails.
What is stored and what is fetched live
What is imported is stored in our own database, which is the source of truth serving the site: visiting a company page does not fire calls to the providers. That protects their rate limits, makes the page load equally fast whether or not they are up, and — the relevant part here — means what you see is a dated snapshot, not a live query.
Attribution and use
SEC EDGAR data is public information of the United States Government. The names and trademarks of the other providers belong to their owners and are cited here to declare the provenance of the data, without implying affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement on their part.
ValuatePad's content is published for informational and educational purposes. It does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell.
Content last reviewed against the code on .