HG SEC Research

Read and search SEC filings through the HG MCP: pick the right SEC tool, scope it so it returns the filing you meant, and cite what you read.

When to use

• A brief needs what a public company said in its own filings: risk factors, MD&A, business overview, legal proceedings, officer changes, material agreements.
• You need to find which filings mention a term or phrase, for one company or across the market.
• The company is a foreign issuer (20-F, 6-K, 40-F) and you need its disclosures.
• A PVP or account brief quotes a figure that should trace to a filing.

Tools you'll touch

• sec_filing_section: full text of one named section from the most recent matching 10-K, 10-Q or 8-K of a US domestic issuer. Cost: 1 per call, not cached (see hg-credit-awareness).
• sec_full_text_search: keyword and phrase search across EDGAR filings, any form type including foreign-issuer forms. Cost: 1 per call, not cached.
• web_search: to find a ticker when you only have a name or domain. Cost: 0.05 basic, 0.10 advanced.

Both SEC tools need the SEC integration. If they're absent from your tool list, say SEC data isn't available on this plan and fall back to web_search with allowedDomains:["sec.gov"].

Step 1: resolve the ticker

Both SEC tools take tickers only. company_firmographic doesn't return a ticker, so don't wait for one there. Use a ticker you already know with certainty, or run web_search ("Acme Corp stock ticker") and confirm it. Class shares use a dot or hyphen ("BRK.A", "BF-B"). Private companies have no ticker; stop there.

Step 2: pick the tool

Question	Tool	Key Parameters
"What are their risk factors / MD&A / business overview?"	sec_filing_section	companyTicker, filingType:"10-K", section:"1A" / "7" / "1"
"Latest quarterly discussion"	sec_filing_section	filingType:"10-Q", section:"part1item2"
"Did they announce a CFO change / acquisition / material agreement?"	sec_filing_section	filingType:"8-K", section:"5.02" / "2.01" / "1.01", plus dateFrom/dateTo
"Which filings mention X?"	sec_full_text_search	query, tickers, formTypes, startDate
Foreign issuer disclosures	sec_full_text_search	formTypes:["20-F"] or ["6-K"], tickers, startDate
Full earnings narrative	sec_full_text_search	formTypes:["8-K"], a phrase query, a tight date window

Using sec_filing_section

• US domestic issuers only: 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. Foreign issuers file 20-F, 6-K or 40-F; route them to sec_full_text_search with formTypes.
• It returns one filing: the single most recent filing that matches. To get an older one, narrow the window.
• fiscalYear matches the calendar year of periodOfReport, not the company's own fiscal-year label. For a company whose fiscal year doesn't end in December the two can differ, so confirm which filing you got from periodOfReport.
• fiscalQuarter is informational only. It doesn't filter. For a specific quarter or 8-K event window, use dateFrom and dateTo (filing dates).
• Stubs: 10-K items 10 to 14 (directors, compensation, ownership, related parties, accountant fees) often point to the proxy statement, and 8-K item 2.02 (earnings) often points to an exhibit. If wordCount is under 100, you have a stub; say where the content lives, or use sec_full_text_search.
• Long sections: full 10-K sections often run 5,000 to 15,000 words. Pass maxWords (1,000 to 3,000 for a summary, 5,000+ for detailed analysis).
• Amended filings (10-K/A) aren't read by this tool.

Using sec_full_text_search

• Always pass query. Use exact phrases in quotes (""material weakness"") and AND, OR, NOT. Generic words match boilerplate.
• Always scope. Pass tickers (preferred) and/or formTypes. Omitting both searches the whole of EDGAR.
• Set startDate. The default window is the last 30 days. For annual filings (10-K, 20-F, 40-F) pass a startDate around "2020-01-01".
• formTypes match by family: ["10-K"] also returns 10-K/A and NT 10-K; ["8-K"] also returns 8-K/A. Post-filter on each result's formType if you need exact types.
• Check searchParams.resolvedCiks and warnings. If no ticker resolved, no search ran and you get 0 results with a warning: that's a ticker problem, not an absence of filings. If only some tickers resolved, only those were searched.
• Results come back up to 100 per page with filingUrl. Paginate with page.

Reading the result

• "No filing found" doesn't mean the company is private. It can mean a wrong ticker, a foreign issuer on the domestic tool, a date window that's too narrow, or a section the company didn't file.
• A full-text hit tells you a filing mentions the term. Open the relevant section (or the filingUrl) before you characterise what it says.
• SEC text is the company's own disclosure: observed, dated and attributable. It outranks web sources for the same fact.

Citation

Cite the form and fiscal year, and the section where relevant: "Acme Corp 10-K, fiscal year 2024, Item 1A (Risk Factors)" or "Acme Corp 8-K filed 2025-03-04, Item 5.02". Include filingUrl when the output supports links.

Credits

Each call costs 1 credit and isn't cached, so a repeat call is billed again. Plan the sections you need, reuse results within the session, and don't re-call "to refresh": filings don't change.

Common pitfalls

1. Calling sec_filing_section for a 20-F or 6-K. Foreign-issuer forms go through sec_full_text_search with formTypes.
2. Passing a name or domain instead of a ticker. Resolve the ticker first; firmographic won't give you one.
3. Omitting query, tickers and formTypes, or leaving the 30-day default startDate on an annual-filing search.
4. Trusting results without checking resolvedCiks and warnings.
5. Using fiscalQuarter to pick a quarter. It doesn't filter; use dateFrom/dateTo.
6. Quoting a stub as the section. Under 100 words means the content is elsewhere.
7. Reading "no filing found" as "private company".
8. Pulling an uncapped 10-K section into a short brief. Use maxWords.

Reference

• V2 tool docs: https://phoenix.hginsights.com/docs/mcp-tools/v2/sec-filing-section and https://phoenix.hginsights.com/docs/mcp-tools/v2/sec-full-text-search
• Full docs for LLMs: https://phoenix.hginsights.com/docs/llms-full.txt
• Related skills: hg-mcp-calling-rules, hg-fallback-to-web-search, hg-citation-discipline, pvp-composition