01The measurement
Eight companies filed their results that morning. Two hours later, a market data provider was still returning the previous quarter for six of the eight; only two were current.
The instinctive reaction is to ask more often. It is the wrong reaction, and an expensive one: polling a provider in a loop is exactly the pattern that ends in an IP block. If the figure is not published at the other end, how often you ask is irrelevant.
02The event and the figure are two different things
When a US-listed company reports, it files a document with the regulator. That document appears in a live submissions feed at the moment it is filed. Measured on 27 August 2026: the feed said 08:49:35 and our clock said 08:49:36. One second.
That feed does not carry tidy, comparable figures: those come later, when somebody processes them. But it carries something valuable on its own: who has just filed. And it comes with the document's list of items, so telling an earnings announcement apart from a corporate governance one costs not a single extra request. Of the last hundred documents of that type, seventeen were earnings.
03What actually makes it faster
- Listen where the data is born, not where it is resold. The regulator publishes the event instantly and for free; the aggregator takes as long as it takes.
- Read the press release. Earnings per share is usually in the document attached to the announcement, hours before it appears tidied anywhere. With a template calibrated per filer it can be extracted, and if the figures do not agree with each other, nothing is published. A gap beats a misread number.
- Push to the screen instead of waiting for the browser to ask again.
Europe has no equivalent central registry, so it has to be done exchange by exchange: the Oslo notices, the Nordics and the Spanish registry, with a classifier deciding whether a headline announces results in eleven languages. The hard part there is not reading, it is not getting confused: «Notice of Results» is not a result, it is the notice that one is coming, and «Results of AGM» are the resolutions of a shareholder meeting. The negatives run first, before any keyword.
04For anyone not building this
- The primary source is public. The US regulator's registry is free and searchable by anyone. If a figure really matters to you, the original document is there.
- Distrust a screen that never says «pending». Minutes or hours pass between a company publishing and the figure appearing tidied. A tool that does not distinguish that state is showing you the old number as though it were the new one.
- Check which quarter you are looking at. The most common way of being wrong about a company is reading a correct figure from the wrong period.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my stock data delayed after earnings?
Because the filing and the usable figure are two different things. A company files with the regulator and the event appears in a live submissions feed within about a second, but the tidy, comparable numbers only exist once somebody processes them. Measured on 27 August 2026, two hours after eight companies reported, a market data provider was still returning the previous quarter for six of them.
Does polling a data provider more often get figures faster?
No. If the figure is not published at the other end, the frequency of your requests is irrelevant. It is also the pattern that gets an IP blocked. What makes data arrive faster is listening where it is born (the regulator's own feed) rather than where it is resold, and reading the press release attached to the announcement.
Is SEC EDGAR data available in real time?
The filing event is, effectively. The live submissions feed lists a document at the moment it is filed; measured on 27 August 2026 the gap between the feed timestamp and our clock was one second. What is not immediate is the structured, comparable figure: that requires processing the document, and for earnings the fastest route is reading the press release attached to the filing.
What should a market data screen show between a filing and a processed figure?
A distinct state. «No data» and «filed, not yet processed» are different situations, and showing them identically means a user cannot tell whether a company has said nothing or published two hours ago. A tool that never says «pending» is presenting the previous quarter as though it were current.
Measured on 27 August 2026 over eight companies reporting that morning. The one-second figure is the gap between the regulator's submissions feed timestamp and our own clock at the moment of reading.
This is information and analysis, not financial advice, and it contains no recommendation to buy or sell. See the disclaimer.
