How to Set Up SEC Filing Alerts (Step-by-Step Guide)

The most important SEC filings arrive without warning. An 8-K about a CEO departure, an earnings release, or a material agreement can be filed at any time. Investors who rely on financial news to discover these filings are often hours behind those who monitor EDGAR directly.

Setting up filing alerts takes less than 10 minutes and ensures you’re notified when a company you follow files with the SEC. Here are two methods, from simplest to most flexible.

Method 1: AssetRoom (alerts with AI summaries)

AssetRoom is a free tool that monitors 10-K and 10-Q filings for companies in your watchlist and delivers email summaries when they’re filed. No credit card or paid plan required. This is the fastest way to get the information that matters without reading full documents.

Step 1: Create a free account

Go to assetroom.net and sign up. No credit card required.

Step 2: Search for the companies you want to follow

Use the search bar to find companies by ticker or name. Click “Follow” on any company page to add it to your watchlist.

Step 3: Enable email alerts

By default, following a company activates email alerts for 10-K and 10-Q filings. You’ll receive an email containing:

• The filing type and company name
• Key financial metrics and year-over-year changes
• AI-generated summary of the most material disclosures
• Link to the full filing on EDGAR

What you’ll receive

For 10-Q filings, you receive a quarterly update with revenue growth, margin trends, and any notable changes vs. prior periods. For 10-K filings, you get an annual summary of financial performance, key risk factors, and business developments.

Method 2: EDGAR RSS feeds (free, no summaries)

EDGAR publishes RSS feeds that update in real time as filings are accepted. You can subscribe to feeds for any company and filter by form type. It doesn’t provide summaries, but it covers every filing type and is completely free. You’ll need an RSS reader (like Feedly, Inoreader, or NetNewsWire) to use this method.

Finding the RSS feed for a company

1. Go to https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=[TICKER]&type=&dateb=&owner=include&count=40&search_text=

2. Replace [TICKER] with the company’s ticker symbol.

3. Look for the RSS feed icon or atom feed link at the bottom of the company page.

EDGAR’s main filing feed

The EDGAR full feed (all filings, all companies) is available at: https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcurrent&type=&dateb=&owner=include&count=40&output=atom

For most investors, this is too broad. Filter by form type by adding &type=8-K or &type=10-K to the URL.

Comparison of methods

For most investors, the best approach is to set up AssetRoom for your core watchlist (where summaries add the most value) and EDGAR RSS feeds for specific form types you want to catch for specific companies (e.g., Form 4 feeds for companies where insider activity is particularly important).

Pro tips

Don’t over-subscribe. Getting alerts for every filing from 50 companies will quickly become noise. Start with 5-10 companies you actively follow and add more as needed.

Prioritize 8-K alerts for event-driven situations. If you own a company going through a strategic review, executive transition, or litigation, real-time 8-K alerts are especially valuable.

Pair alerts with a reading system. An alert without a workflow to read and act on it doesn’t help. Decide in advance: when you get an earnings 8-K, what will you check first? (Revenue vs. estimate, guidance vs. consensus (the average of analyst forecasts), cash flow.)