SEC Info
   SEC Info’s   Find    Words  in Filings

Usage:
  Find   is used to search for words and numbers within the Documents of any subset of Filings you are looking at.  Enter the Words you are looking for, select the “Show” context display options you prefer, and then click on   Find  .  All text searches are case-insensitive, so capitalization is irrelevant.

Scope:
  Find   searches for words and numbers within the specific Filings you are looking at.  If you are really searching for something that is an “Entity” in a more global sense, such as a company, fund or person, you should instead use the Search tab in the top menu of each page for an “Entity” Search.

Wildcards:
The words/numbers you enter may contain the standard single- and multiple-characters wildcard symbols:  a question mark (‘?’) will match 0 or 1 letter/digit, and an asterisk (‘*’) will match 0 or more letters/digits.  For example, M?cGroary will find both “McGroary” and “MacGroary”, and owner* will find all of “Owner”, “Owners”, “ownership”, etc.  (Wildcards are substitutes only for letters/digits, not punctuation.)

Logic:
You may use logic operators for multiple-word searches, but you do not need to (and should not) use them unless you explicitly intend to override the default behavior for either the in-Document test for the words to find or the context display of the found words.    Find   understands both standard logic operators:
  • An ampersand (‘&’) means “and” for the in-Document test and “near” for the context display, i.e., a Document must have one word “and” the other “near” each other.  For example, Apple & Google means both must be present and close to each other in the text.
  • A vertical line (‘|’) means “or” for the in-Document test and “anywhere” for the context display, i.e., a Document may have one word “or” the other “anywhere” in the text.  For example, Apple | Google means either may be present, resulting in more Document “hits”.

Defaults:
If you do not use the logic operators,   Find   assumes “and” for the in-Document test and “or” (implying “anywhere”) for the context display.  Note that these defaults for the in-Document test and context display are logically opposite, resulting in the highlighting of each word found anywhere in Documents where all the words are present somewhere.  In contrast to the above examples, Apple Google means both must be present, but not necessarily close to each other in the text.  This results in the widest possible search within the Documents, in terms of the individual word “hits” displayed.  When you do use the logic operators, you override this default behavior for either the in-Document test or the context display, effectively modifying your search by narrowing it (with ‘&’) or widening it (with ‘|’).

Grouping:
Use grouping characters around phrases and names when you want all of the grouped words to be present and close to each other.  Paired quotation marks (two double-quote ‘"’s) and matching parentheses (‘(’ & ‘)’), square brackets (‘[’ & ‘]’), curly brackets/braces (‘{’ & ‘}’) and angle brackets (‘<’ & ‘>’) can be used to group words that should be found only if they are all near each other in the text.  These are easier to use than puting an ‘&’ between each word, e.g., "U* S* Securities and Exchange Commission" is syntactically equivalent to U* & S* & Securities & and & Exchange & Commission .  If you use them,   Find   assumes “and” for both the in-Document test and the context display.  For the context display, the “and” grouping implies “near” each other, in contrast to the default non-grouping “or” which implies individual words “anywhere” in the text.

Punctuation:
For all other punctuation/non-alphanumeric characters, such as a hyphen/dash (‘-’) or an apostrophe (single-quote ‘'’),   Find   assumes “and” for both the in-Document test and the context display.  For example, O'Malley implies “O and Malley” for the in-Document test and “O near Malley” for the context display.  (This is syntactically equivalent to O & Malley and "O Malley" ).  Note that the quotation mark (‘"’) is a grouping character, while the apostrophe (‘'’) is considered punctuation.

Precedence:
The “and” tests have higher precedence than the “or” tests, so the “and” tests are performed before the “or” tests.  This standard behavior can be overridden by using the grouping characters.  For example, "Bill | Will* Gates" will find “Bill” (by itself, anywhere) or “William near Gates” (due to the assumed “and” inside the quotes), whereas "(Bill | Will*) Gates" will find “Bill near Gates” or “William near Gates”.

Hyphenation:
If you are not sure about hyphenations, you should do an “or” search for both non-hyphenated and hyphenated versions.  For example, "(antidilution | anti-dilution) protection?" .  (The question-mark wildcard cannot be used to deal with the hyphen in this situation, because wildcards are substitutes only for letters/digits, not punctuation.)

Apostrophes:
Similar to hyphenation, do an “or” search.  For example, "(funds' | fund's) performance" .