On July 21, staff in the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis published findings related to an analysis of public float tagging errors. Form 10-K cover pages require the disclosure of the aggregate market value of both voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates computed by reference to the price at which the common equity was most recently sold, or the average bid and asked price of such common equity, such as public float, as of the last business day of a filer’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter.
The staff’s recent analysis of public float data implemented actions and provided a number of findings. The staff:
- observed scaling errors in the tagged public float data and in certain filings
- published a data quality reminder in 2019 to remind filers to review their tagged data to ensure scaling accuracy—please see the Scaling Errors in Public Float webpage on the SEC’s website
- conducted an assessment public float data in Forms 10-K for the fiscal year ending in 2024
- noted inconsistencies in the date information between the HTML filing and the tagged data
For more information, including real example errors, please see the Public Float Tagging Errors announcement on sec.gov.
The SEC advises careful review of public float data to ensure accurate and consistent financial reporting. For more data quality reminders, please see Staff Observations and Guidance.
Sources:
Public Float Tagging Errors (sec.gov)
Scaling Errors in Public Float - Data Quality Reminder 2019 (sec.gov)
