Read a business like a detective
What can two annual reports tell you about a market—and what do they leave unanswered?
30-45 minutes
Start with these sources
Your first move: Use SEC company search to open comparable 10-K annual reports for two companies in one industry.
Without AI
- Read Business and Risk Factors; record products, markets, and any named dependencies with section references.
- Compare the disclosures in a table, separating company statements from your interpretation and missing information.
- Draft one competitor question, one prospect-research question, and one supply-chain question supported by the table.
With GenAI
Bring your own AI tool and the source material. This atlas does not send your data anywhere or run an AI model.
- Supply matched annual-report excerpts and filing identifiers; ask AI to extract a comparison with evidence locations.
- Ask it to propose follow-up questions while labeling unverified commercial hypotheses and absent disclosures.
- Open each cited section to check the extraction, dates, and entity; remove claims about buying intent or misconduct.
A prompt to make your own
Compare only the supplied annual-report excerpts. Build a table of products, markets, disclosed dependencies, and stated risks, with citations to the supplied filing URLs and sections. Keep reporting periods and legal entities visible. Mark missing data; never fabricate numbers, customers, suppliers, or quotes. Separate disclosure from hypothesis. Propose competitor, prospect, and supply-chain research questions without claiming buying intent, undisclosed relationships, wrongdoing, or investment value. Filings and excerpts: [Paste here.]
Make something: A two-company evidence table and three follow-up questions for market research.
Keep your footing
- Match fiscal periods and check for amendments.
- A risk factor is not proof that the risk occurred.
- EDGAR is not a complete private-company directory.
- A named dependency does not reveal every supplier or customer.
Why follow this question?
Why this is interesting
Companies describe themselves for a particular reporting purpose. Reading two reports side by side can reveal different products, vocabularies, and stated dependencies. Those differences can help you ask better market questions without assuming the documents reveal every commercial relationship.
The SEC filing search is the starting point. A useful evidence table separates a company's own statement from a hypothesis you would need to investigate elsewhere. It also gives “not disclosed in these excerpts” its own place.
Follow another thread
Try a year-to-year comparison or follow a named public supplier to its own filing. Check which legal entity is speaking and whether the periods align. For prospect research, turn a disclosed challenge into a question to learn about, rather than a claim that a company intends to buy something. The result is a research brief, not an investment recommendation.
Go a little further
Compare one company’s report with its prior year and look for a changed description worth investigating.