featured imageMarika
February 24, 2026

Can You Build a Google Finance-Style App Using Only SEC Filings?

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People love the idea of a Google Finance-style app.

A clean company page. A timeline of updates. A quick way to answer: “What changed this quarter?” And ideally, a way to catch new filings the moment they hit EDGAR.

So the question comes up fast:

Can you build something like Google Finance using only SEC filings?

Yes!

It will look like a filing-first finance app: strong on fundamentals and excellent on transparency.

With the FinFeedAPI SEC API, you can get surprisingly far using just filings — because you can stream new filings in real time, search the text, extract specific items, download source documents, and even convert XBRL to JSON for statement-like data.

Let’s break down what’s possible (and what isn’t) using only SEC filings.

When people say “Google Finance,” they usually mean a product page that has:

  • A company overview (ticker/identity)
  • A timeline of events (earnings, news, filings)
  • Charts (usually price charts)
  • Fundamentals (revenue, profit, cash, debt)
  • Search (“show me mentions of layoffs / buybacks / litigation”)
  • Alerts (new filings or big changes)

SEC filings can cover a lot of that. Not everything.

But with the right UX, you can still deliver the core experience: a company page that updates itself, tells a story, and has data you can verify.

SEC filings are the closest thing to a public “ground truth” for U.S. listed companies.

They contain:

  • Financial statements (often in XBRL)
  • Risk factors and forward-looking language
  • Material events (8-K item structure)
  • Business description, segments, legal proceedings
  • Footnotes you won’t get from “simple fundamentals” feeds

And with FinFeedAPI, you can work with filings in multiple ways:

  • Query filing metadata (filter by ticker/CIK, form type, date ranges, paging/sorting) via GET /v1/filings.
  • Stream new filings in real time via WebSocket at wss://api.sec.finfeedapi.com with ~100 ms latency.
  • Full-text search across filing documents via GET /v1/full-text.
  • Extract and classify filing content via GET /v1/extractor.
  • Extract only a specific item (like an 8-K Item 2.02) via GET /v1/extractor/item.
  • Download original EDGAR files by accession number + filename via GET /v1/download (streamed from SEC).
  • Convert XBRL to JSON via GET /v1/xbrl-converter (using accession number or SEC URLs).

That mix is what makes a filing-first app feel “alive,” not just like a static archive.

This is the easiest win.

Using the WebSocket stream, you can show:

  • New filings as they are discovered (form, description, cik, accession_no, timestamps)
  • A clean “backlog first, then real-time” flow (is_historical flips to false after the initial backlog)
  • Optional heartbeat messages so you can show “connected” even when there are no new filings

This alone lets you ship a homepage that feels like a market terminal — but focused on disclosures instead of trades.

UI idea: “Latest SEC Filings” with filters by form type (10-K/10-Q/8-K) and a company quick-search that jumps to a company page.

This is where it starts to feel “Google Finance-ish.”

For a company page, your backbone is GET /v1/filings with:

  • ticker=... or cik=...
  • form_type=10-K,10-Q,8-K (comma-separated)
  • date filters like filling_date_start and filling_date_end
  • sorting like sort_by=FilingDate&sort_order=desc
  • pagination (page_size up to 200)

Then each row becomes a timeline card.

UI idea: show “10-K”, “10-Q”, “8-K” as tabs. Each timeline item opens a detail view.

Most filing apps fail because they show a giant HTML blob.

You can do better.

Use GET /v1/extractor to retrieve filing content and classify it by form structure:

  • 8-K: categorized by item numbers (like 1.01, 2.01, 7.01)
  • 10-K / 10-Q: categorized by their part/item structure
  • output can be type=text or type=html

That means your UI can become navigable:

  • Sidebar: items/parts
  • Main: clean text rendering
  • “Copy section” button
  • “Compare vs previous filing” later (even if your first version is just side-by-side)

This is a real product feature.

A lot of users don’t want the full filing. They want a specific item.

Use GET /v1/extractor/item with:

  • accession_number=...
  • item_number=... (e.g., “2.02” for earnings releases, “1.01” for material agreements)
  • optional type=text|html

Then your UI can have “Quick links” like:

  • “Earnings release (Item 2.02)”
  • “Reg FD disclosure (Item 7.01)”
  • “Departure of directors/officers (Item 5.02)”

This is a big reason a filings app can feel fast and practical.

This is how you get statement-like data without paying for a “fundamentals” database.

FinFeedAPI’s GET /v1/xbrl-converter converts XBRL into JSON, and it supports three input methods:

  • accession-no=... (accession number)
  • htm-url=... (SEC filing URL ending in .htm/.html)
  • xbrl-url=... (SEC XBRL .xml URL)

The response can include:

  • financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow)
  • company info and metadata
  • footnotes/policies (depending on what’s in the filing)

UI idea: show “Revenue,” “Net Income,” “Cash,” “Debt” as simple cards, sourced from XBRL.

This won’t be as clean as a curated fundamentals feed, but it’s defensible: every number has a provenance.

Google Finance has search-like discovery.

Filings can too — if the search experience is good.

With GET /v1/full-text, you can search across filing documents using:

  • text_contains (comma-separated keywords)
  • text_not_contain
  • filters like form_type and filing date ranges
  • sorting by fields like FilingDate, CompanyName, FormType, etc.

UI idea: a search bar with presets:

  • “layoffs, restructuring”
  • “share repurchase”
  • “going concern”
  • “material weakness”
  • “AI, machine learning”

This is where filing-only apps can become genuinely useful.

Filling will not give you all details.

SEC filings don’t include live prices.

You can build a “Google Finance-style” layout, but the chart can’t be the classic intraday candlestick chart unless you add market price data later.

Filings can explain why something changed.
But they’re not a replacement for news feeds.

Not in filings.

So if your definition of “Google Finance-style” is “prices + news + estimates,” filings alone won’t match it.

If your definition is “company overview + fundamentals + timeline + search + alerts,” filings-only can be excellent.

Here’s a clean way to structure it.

  • Company identifier in your DB: ticker, cik
  • Timeline source: GET /v1/filings (cached)
  • Live updates: WebSocket filings stream (fan-out to your users)
  • Filing detail view: GET /v1/extractor (cached per accession)
  • Deep links: GET /v1/extractor/item for specific item pages
  • “View original” buttons: GET /v1/download to stream the exact SEC document
  • Show filenames discovered via /v1/filings first (tip from the docs)
  • Statement-ish data: GET /v1/xbrl-converter
  • Cache results aggressively (filings don’t change often after acceptance)
  • Start simple with GET /v1/full-text
  • Later: index extracted sections so search results land on “Risk Factors” or “MD&A” directly

If you want a crisp MVP that proves the concept, build:

Live filings homepage

  • WebSocket stream → realtime list
  • Filters for 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K

Company page

  • /v1/filings?ticker=... → timeline
  • click a filing → detail view

Filing detail view

  • /v1/extractor?accession_number=...&type=text
  • table of contents from the classified output
  • “extract item” shortcuts

Search

  • /v1/full-text?text_contains=...&form_type=10-K,10-Q,8-K

Basic fundamentals

  • /v1/xbrl-converter?accession-no=...
  • show a few headline metrics and a “view statement JSON” developer tab

That is already a “Google Finance-style” experience — just filing-native.

If you want to build a filings-first finance app or track how company narratives change over time you need structured, real-time access to SEC disclosures.

FinFeedAPI’s SEC API provides machine-readable filing metadata, full-text search, item-level extraction, XBRL-to-JSON conversion, and live WebSocket streaming so you can analyze what companies report, when they report it, and how disclosures evolve.

👉 Explore the SEC Filings API at FinFeedAPI.com and turn EDGAR data into a live, searchable intelligence platform.

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