Nerds on Wall Street: Math, Machines, and Wired Markets

2.7. EDGAR: The SEC Gets the XML Religion

The SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions by companies and others that are required by law to file forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

All of this Web 2.0 XML magic was once beyond the horizon at the SEC. The SEC had farmed out the design and programming of EDGAR to the California defense firm TRW Inc., which is a good place to go for space satellite expertise, but is not known as a great innovator in software. EDGAR had a distinct 1980s flavor to it well into the new millennium. There was some lip service about using an XML conceptual superset called SGML (standard generalized markup language). Nothing changed until recently, though, when then SEC Chairman Christopher Cox lit a fire and gave a keynote speech at a nerd-heavy XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) conference. You can watch it at www.sec.gov. In hindsight, maybe there were some other things going on that he could have focused on with the same intensity he gave to XML.