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Disclosure Alpha

Reference

Glossary

Key terms for deterministic SEC filing analytics and disclosure risk scoring.

Methodology · FAQ · Full glossary on ReadTheDocs ↗

Disclosure risk score
overall_disclosure_risk_score (0–100) aggregates nine headline-weighted component scores from deterministic_scoring_v2. Higher values indicate more disclosure risk or deterioration on that scale. Not investment advice.

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Item 1A
Risk Factors section in 10-K and 10-Q filings. Primary source for risk-factor tone, boilerplate, and legal/regulatory language component scores. Validation corpus used Item 1A text.

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MD&A
Management Discussion and Analysis (Item 7 in 10-K, Item 2 in 10-Q). Parsed for mdna_uncertainty_score and liquidity_stress_score from uncertainty, demand stress, and forward-looking language patterns.

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EDGAR
SEC Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. Ticker-based scoring fetches filing HTML from EDGAR and requires a valid SEC User-Agent header.

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10-K
Annual report SEC form. Supported via ticker routes (CLI, SDK, HTTP, MCP Analyst) or local --html. Primary form for year-over-year disclosure change scoring when a prior filing is supplied.
10-Q
Quarterly report SEC form. Supported via the same surfaces as 10-K. Section taxonomy differs slightly from annual filings; scores include form_type in responses.
8-K
Current report for material events. Scoring supported via local --html or MCP Builder only — not EDGAR ticker routes or HTTP API ticker endpoints.

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Boilerplate risk
boilerplate_risk_score measures vague, templated risk-factor language in Item 1A, driven by boilerplate_combined_ratio in text_metrics_v4. Validated with Spearman ρ ≈ 0.92 vs ls_boilerplate_word_ratio on boilerplate_combined_ratio (n=478); phrase-only v3 was ≈0.74. Not a full replication of the Lang & Stice-Lawrence paper measure.

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boilerplate_combined_ratio
Blended boilerplate input in text_metrics_v4 (phrase list + cross-firm 4-gram share) used to compute boilerplate_risk_score. Construct validity checked vs ls_boilerplate_word_ratio.

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boilerplate_phrase_ratio
Section-level phrase hit rate from a fixed boilerplate phrase list (Lang & Stice-Lawrence-inspired). Phrase-only metrics in v3 correlated ≈0.74 with the LS-style proxy; v4 combines phrase and cross-firm signals.

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boilerplate_cross_firm_ratio
Cross-firm 4-gram word share in text_metrics_v4 — closer to the Lang & Stice-Lawrence validation reference than phrase-only measures.

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Quintile
Score distribution bucket (Q1–Q5) used in validation reporting. Q5/Q1 post-filing volatility ratio ≈ 1.15 on n=435 — descriptive association only, not return prediction.

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score_coverage_ratio
Fraction of expected sections successfully extracted and scored. Low coverage indicates missing sections or extraction issues; inspect section text and extraction_warnings before scaling.

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deterministic_scoring_v2
Default scoring model version string. Defines component weights and aggregation. Identical input HTML and version strings yield identical scores across all integration surfaces.

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MCP
Model Context Protocol integration for agent tools. MCP Analyst handles ticker workflows; MCP Builder exposes raw HTML tools including 8-K scoring.

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SEC User-Agent
Required HTTP header (name and contact email) for EDGAR requests when scoring by ticker. Set via SEC_USER_AGENT environment variable. Not required for local --html scoring.

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section_extractor_v1
Parser artifact version string in score responses. Extracts stable section IDs (e.g. item_1a_risk_factors) from filing HTML for downstream metrics and scoring.

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text_metrics_v4
Metrics artifact version string. Computes tone ratios, boilerplate proxies (phrase + cross-firm blend), NER-based specificity, and other text measures on extracted sections.

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built_in_dictionaries_v3
Built-in word list artifact version. Disclosure Alpha ships built-in lists — not Loughran–McDonald licensed lists unless you load them separately.

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disclosure_change_score
Component measuring year-over-year section text changes. Requires a prior comparable filing (--prior-html or prior fiscal year). Part of deterministic_scoring_v2 headline weights.

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specificity_quality_score
Computed component reflecting company-specific vs generic language (higher = more specific). Returned in responses but excluded from headline weight aggregation.

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Panel screener
POST /v1/panel/disclosure-matrix batch endpoint scoring up to 25 tickers per request. Errors collected per ticker without fail-fast.

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extraction_warnings
Parser warnings in score responses when section boundaries are uncertain or sections are missing. Use with score_coverage_ratio to QA extraction before trusting scores.

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