SEC EDGAR API: How I Built a Free Stock Research Tool (No API Key Needed)

Last month, a friend asked me to help him analyze Tesla's financial filings. He was paying $50/month for a stock research tool. I built him a free alternative in 2 hours using the SEC EDGAR API. Here's exactly how. Why SEC EDGAR? Every public company in the US must file financial reports with the SEC. These filings — 10-K (annual), 10-Q (quarterly), 8-K (events) — are all available for free through the EDGAR API. No API key required. Just a User-Agent header with your email. Setup: Zero Dependencies import requests import json HEADERS = { " User-Agent " : " MyApp/1.0 (your-email@example.com) " } BASE_URL = " https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST " That's it. No signup, no OAuth, no rate limit anxiety. Step 1: Find Any Company by Name def search_company ( query ): url = f " { BASE_URL } /search-index?q= { query } &dateRange=custom&startdt=2024-01-01&enddt=2025-12-31 " response = requests . get ( url , headers = HEADERS ) data = response . json () for hit in data . get ( " hits " , {}). get ( " hi