Form N-Q Files Dataset

The Form N-Q Files dataset is a complete archive of every Form N-Q and Form N-Q/A submission accepted by the SEC's EDGAR system, from the form's first appearance in October 2003 through its rescission effective May 1, 2020 and the residual late-filed amendments that followed. One record corresponds to a single EDGAR acceptance event for a registered management investment company's quarterly schedule of portfolio holdings, identified by its 18-digit SEC accession number. Filings were submitted by registered open-end and closed-end management investment companies (mutual funds, listed and non-listed closed-end funds, interval funds, money market funds) under Rule 30b1-5 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, covering each registrant's first and third fiscal quarters. Records are packaged into monthly ZIP containers keyed by EDGAR acceptance month and ship as a metadata.json envelope plus the SGML-wrapped primary N-Q document and any attached exhibits in HTML, PDF, or plain text.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset captures the SEC's full off-quarter portfolio-disclosure record for non-money-market and money market registered investment companies during the N-Q regime. Form N-Q was the SEC's quarterly portfolio-holdings report for registered management investment companies (other than small business investment companies on Form N-5), required under Rule 30b1-5 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Funds filed it within 60 days after the close of the first and third fiscal quarters, complementing the second- and fourth-quarter holdings already disclosed in the semiannual and annual shareholder reports on Form N-CSR/N-CSRS. The form combines a short cover page identifying the registrant, its series and classes, and the period of report with a complete schedule of investments as of the quarter-end and a small set of governance, certification, and signature items.

The form was adopted in 2004 under the SEC's Final Rule on Disclosure Regarding Portfolio Holdings of Registered Management Investment Companies and was rescinded effective May 1, 2020, replaced by the monthly, structured Form N-PORT regime under the Investment Company Reporting Modernization rules. Coverage in the dataset for periods after that date trails off rapidly and consists primarily of late filings and amendments that reference earlier quarters. Records are grouped into monthly ZIP archives keyed by the EDGAR acceptance month (YYYY-MM.zip) under year folders. Each archive contains a single top-level YYYY-MM/ folder and, beneath it, one self-contained subfolder per accession. An individual record can be lifted out and processed independently of the rest of the container. The file types found in the dataset are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF.

Content Structure of a Single Record

What one record represents

One record in the Form N-Q Files dataset is a single Form N-Q or Form N-Q/A submission as accepted by EDGAR, identified by its 18-digit SEC accession number. On disk a record is a folder named after the de-dashed accession number that holds a metadata.json envelope describing the submission and the documents the registrant transmitted (the primary N-Q and any attached exhibits). Each record corresponds one-to-one with an EDGAR acceptance event for a registered investment company's quarterly schedule of portfolio holdings. Amendments are stored as their own records under their own accession numbers and carry the form type N-Q/A; an amendment never overwrites or supersedes the original record on disk.

Content layers inside a single record

A record has three layers: a structured metadata envelope (metadata.json), the primary Form N-Q document, and zero or more supporting exhibits. The metadata describes the submission and the filer; the primary document carries the substantive disclosure required by the form; the exhibits carry the officer certifications and any optional supplemental material. Every non-metadata file in the folder is an EDGAR SGML-wrapped document whose original HTML, plain-text, or PDF body is embedded inside a <DOCUMENT> envelope.

metadata.json

metadata.json is the per-accession descriptor and is always present. Top-level fields capture submission identity and provenance:

• id — stable hash uniquely identifying the metadata record.
• accessionNo — EDGAR accession number in dashed form; the folder name is the same value with dashes removed.
• formType — N-Q or N-Q/A.
• description — EDGAR's plain-text label for the form (e.g., "Form N-Q - Quarterly Schedule of portfolio holdings of management investment companies").
• filedAt — ISO-8601 timestamp with timezone offset for EDGAR acceptance.
• effectivenessDate — date the filing became effective (typically the same calendar day as filedAt).
• periodOfReport — quarter-end date the schedule of investments covers (close of the first or third fiscal quarter).
• linkToFilingDetails, linkToTxt, linkToHtml, linkToXbrl — canonical EDGAR URLs to the primary document, the consolidated SGML submission text, the EDGAR HTML index page, and the XBRL instance when one was filed.
• documentFormatFiles[] — one entry per attached document, mirroring the EDGAR submission's document table.
• dataFiles[] — XBRL or other structured data exhibits when present; for N-Q this array is typically empty because the form did not require structured tagging.
• entities[] — the filer(s) on the submission, almost always a single registered investment company.
• seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] — SEC series and class/contract identifiers reported on the cover page.

Each documentFormatFiles[] element exposes sequence (string-encoded ordinal), type (the SEC document type tag such as N-Q, EX-99.CERT, or GRAPHIC), description (filer-supplied label, sometimes blank), documentUrl (canonical EDGAR URL), and size (byte length encoded as a string). The trailing entry for the consolidated .txt submission carries a single space as its sequence value. Image documents (GRAPHIC, etc.) appear in this array even though their bytes are not packaged in the ZIP.

Each entities[] element captures the EDGAR header data for that party: companyName with role suffix (e.g., "VOLUMETRIC FUND INC (Filer)"), zero-padded cik, the role type, the governing act ("40" for the Investment Company Act of 1940), fileNo (typically in the 811- series for registered funds), filmNo, irsNo, stateOfIncorporation, and fiscalYearEnd as four-character MMDD.

Each seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] element binds a fund series to its share classes: series (the SEC series identifier such as S000012023), name, and a nested classesContracts[] array where each entry carries classContract (the C-prefixed class identifier), name, and ticker when assigned. Series-trust families therefore expose every reporting series and class on the cover-page record; single-series funds appear with one entry, and older filings predating mature series-and-class registration may carry an empty array.

Primary N-Q document

The primary document is the substantive Form N-Q. Inside the SGML envelope its <TYPE> is N-Q (or N-Q/A for amendments), <SEQUENCE> is 1, and <TEXT> wraps the rendered HTML body. The body opens with a cover page identifying the registrant, the investment company file number (an 811- number), the address and contact for the registered agent, the period of report, and — for series trusts — the series and classes whose holdings are being reported. The body then proceeds through the four numbered Items the form prescribes:

• Item 1. Schedule of Investments. The core of the filing: a complete schedule of investments as of the close of the applicable fiscal quarter, prepared in accordance with Regulation S-X Article 6 (and, for unit investment trusts, Rule 12-12 et seq.). Holdings are listed line by line and typically segmented by asset class (common stocks, preferred stocks, corporate bonds, U.S. Treasury obligations, asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities, repurchase agreements, derivatives, short-term investments, money market funds) and frequently by industry, country, or sector subheading. Each line discloses at minimum the security name and identifying detail (issuer, coupon, maturity, series), the quantity held (shares, par value, notional amount, or contracts), and the fair value at the period end. Funds frequently include cost basis, percentage of net assets, ratings, and footnote markers indicating non-income-producing securities, securities on loan, illiquid or restricted securities, affiliated holdings, and securities valued using significant unobservable inputs (Level 3). For derivatives, schedules of futures, forward foreign currency contracts, written options, swap contracts, and centrally cleared positions appear as separate sub-tables, each disclosing notional/face amounts, counterparties where applicable, expiration dates, and unrealized appreciation or depreciation. ASC 820 fair-value hierarchy tables (Level 1/2/3) and a brief summary of valuation policies are commonly appended. Multi-series trusts repeat the entire Item 1 block for each series.
• Item 2. Controls and Procedures. A short statement that the principal executive and principal financial officers concluded the registrant's disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of a date within 90 days of the filing, plus a representation about whether any change in internal control over financial reporting during the most recent fiscal quarter materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, internal control.
• Item 3. Exhibits. A reference to the certifications required under Rule 30a-2(a) of the Investment Company Act, filed as exhibits to the form.
• Item 4. Signatures. The signature block executed on behalf of the registrant by an authorized officer (typically the President or Treasurer), followed by separate signature blocks executed individually by the principal executive officer and the principal financial officer.

Exhibits

The recurring exhibit on Form N-Q is the certifications block under exhibit type EX-99.CERT, contained in its own document file with its own SGML envelope. The certifications restate, individually for the principal executive officer and the principal financial officer, the four certifications required by Rule 30a-2(a): personal review of the report; the filer's responsibility for and design of disclosure controls and procedures; the certifying officer's evaluation of those controls within 90 days of the filing; and disclosure to the auditors and audit committee of any material weaknesses or fraud involving management or other employees with a significant role in internal control. Each certification is dated and individually signed. Some filers attach additional voluntary materials — supplemental holdings schedules, errata, or cover letters — under exhibit types such as EX-99 or as plain attachments; these are carried in the folder when present.

Document envelope and on-disk layout

Inside the accession folder, metadata.json sits alongside one document file per attached exhibit. Filenames are filer-supplied and not predictable (a primary document might be named 3rdqreportedgar2020.htm and a certification cert30arule.htm). Each document file begins with the SGML wrapper that EDGAR ingested:

          1
          <DOCUMENT>
        

          2
          <TYPE>N-Q
        

          3
          <SEQUENCE>1
        

          4
          <FILENAME>3rdqreportedgar2020.htm
        

          5
          <DESCRIPTION>THIRD QUARTER REPORT 2020
        

          6
          <TEXT>
        

          7
          <HTML>
        

          8
          ... rendered N-Q body ...
        

          9
          </HTML>
        

          10
          </TEXT>
        

          11
          </DOCUMENT>
        

The <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, and <DESCRIPTION> header lines mirror the corresponding row in metadata.json.documentFormatFiles[], providing two equivalent join paths: matching the on-disk file name to the trailing path segment of documentUrl, or matching it to the <FILENAME> line in the wrapper. The body inside <TEXT> is the original payload — usually HTML/HTM, occasionally PDF or a plain TXT block.

Included content

Every record contains metadata.json plus the bytes of every non-image document EDGAR received with the submission. In practice this means the primary N-Q HTML/HTM document, the EX-99.CERT certifications, and any additional attachments the filer included, each preserved with its original SGML wrapper, original filename, and original payload format.

Excluded or separate content

• Image attachments — GRAPHIC documents such as JPG and GIF binaries referenced inline by the schedule of investments or used for a fund logo on the cover page — are intentionally stripped from the record even though they remain enumerated in documentFormatFiles[].
• The consolidated full-submission .txt file that EDGAR produces by concatenating all document segments is not duplicated inside the folder; its EDGAR URL is exposed via metadata.json.linkToTxt.
• XBRL instance documents are essentially never present for N-Q filings because the form did not carry a structured-data tagging requirement; the dataFiles[] array and linkToXbrl field are present for schema consistency but typically empty.
• The original Form N-PORT successor filings, the related Form N-CSR shareholder reports, and prior or subsequent periods for the same fund are separate accessions and live as separate records (or, for N-PORT and N-CSR, in entirely separate datasets).

Changes in required content over time

Form N-Q's substantive disclosure requirements remained largely stable across the form's lifetime (2004 through May 2020). The most consequential historical context is the form's beginning and end rather than mid-life amendments: it was adopted in 2004 to make complete first- and third-quarter schedules of investments publicly available and was rescinded in 2020 in favor of the monthly, structured Form N-PORT. Within that span, fund-level evolution in the Item 1 schedule of investments tracked changes in Regulation S-X and ASC 820 fair-value disclosure conventions: detail on Level 1/2/3 fair-value classifications, on derivatives positions and counterparties, and on securities lending grew across the post-2008 period, but these are presentation refinements within the schedule rather than new Items. Series-and-classes cover-page identifiers became routinely populated as EDGAR's series-and-class registration system matured, so older records may carry an empty seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] even where a modern equivalent would not.

Changes in data format over time

Form N-Q was filed natively as EDGAR HTML throughout its life, with the SGML <DOCUMENT> wrapper around an HTML body, and that remains the dominant on-disk shape across the dataset. A small minority of submissions used or supplemented HTML with plain-text payloads or PDF attachments, particularly in the early years and for ancillary materials. The form was never subject to a financial-statement XBRL tagging mandate, which is why structured-data exhibits do not appear in the dataset; structured holdings reporting was instead the design rationale for the successor Form N-PORT, which sits outside this dataset.

Interpretation notes

• The accession folder name is the dashless form of metadata.json.accessionNo; either spelling joins back to EDGAR cleanly.
• Records are bucketed into monthly containers by filedAt, not by periodOfReport. A late filing or an N-Q/A amendment for an earlier quarter lands in the container for the month EDGAR accepted it, so reconstructing a fund's reporting history requires reading periodOfReport and formType rather than relying on the container path.
• documentFormatFiles[] is the authoritative inventory of what the filer transmitted; the on-disk file set is a strict subset (images dropped, consolidated .txt not duplicated). When auditing completeness, compare on-disk filenames against the trailing path segments of documentUrl and treat any GRAPHIC-typed entry as expected-missing.
• metadata.json is guaranteed in every record; everything else is optional and depends on what the filer attached. Records with only metadata.json and a primary HTM document are common, particularly for single-series funds whose certifications language was embedded directly in the primary document.
• Multi-series trusts file a single Form N-Q covering several series, and the schedule of investments inside Item 1 repeats per series. seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] is the most reliable structured handle for routing each per-series schedule back to the correct series and share classes.
• N-Q/A records share the same anatomy as N-Q records and reference the same periodOfReport as the original submission they amend. The relationship between an amendment and its predecessor is not encoded as a back-pointer field and must be reconstructed from filer CIK, period of report, and filing chronology.
• The schedule of investments is rendered as HTML tables rather than as machine-tagged data; positions, valuations, and counterparties must be parsed from the HTML body, with attention to filer-specific table layouts, footnote markers, per-series subheadings, and inconsistent column ordering across funds and across years.
• Coverage tapers sharply after the May 2020 rescission. Containers for months after that date are sparse and dominated by amendments and late filings; analyses spanning the rescission boundary should weight or filter accordingly rather than treat the post-2020 tail as comparable to the steady-state period.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files

Form N-Q was filed by registered management investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The filer of record was the registered fund entity itself (typically a Massachusetts business trust, Delaware statutory trust, or Maryland corporation), not a series, share class, adviser, sponsor, or board.

The reporting population covered both subclasses of management companies:

• Open-end management investment companies (mutual funds) registered on Form N-1A. For series trusts, the trust filed a single N-Q covering every series whose first or third fiscal quarter ended on the relevant date.
• Closed-end management investment companies registered on Form N-2, including listed funds, interval funds, and non-listed closed-end vehicles.

Money market funds were within the N-Q population while the form was operative, even after they also became subject to monthly Form N-MFP reporting.

The principal executive officer and principal financial officer of the registrant signed the Sarbanes-Oxley-style certifications required by Rule 30a-2, but the legal filer remained the registered fund entity.

Trigger and due date

Form N-Q was a periodic, fiscal-calendar-driven filing, not an event-driven one. The trigger was the close of the registrant's first and third fiscal quarters. Each filing was due within 60 days after that quarter-end and had to contain the complete schedule of portfolio investments as of the quarter-end date, prepared consistent with Regulation S-X Article 12 line-item requirements, plus the Rule 30a-2 officer certifications.

The second and fourth fiscal quarters were not reported on N-Q because those holdings were already disclosed in the registrant's semi-annual and annual shareholder reports on Form N-CSR. N-Q therefore filled the two off-cycle quarters and gave the SEC and the public quarterly visibility into fund portfolios.

Because fiscal year-ends vary across the fund industry, N-Q filings spread across the calendar rather than clustering on calendar quarter-ends. A fund with an October 31 fiscal year-end, for example, filed roughly 60 days after January 31 and roughly 60 days after July 31.

Form N-Q/A was used to amend a previously filed N-Q (correcting holdings, restating values, fixing certifications, etc.). It carries its own accession number and supersedes the original for the same registrant and period. Late or non-timely filings could be preceded by a Form NT N-Q under Rule 12b-25.

Regulatory framework

Form N-Q was adopted in 2004 (Investment Company Act Release No. IC-26372) and operated under Rule 30b1-5 under the Investment Company Act of 1940, with statutory authority under Section 30 of the Act. It sat alongside Rule 30b2-1 (Form N-CSR) to produce a quarter-by-quarter portfolio disclosure regime. The form was a "filed" report (subject to Section 18 liability), not a furnished one.

Operative window

The dataset spans the form's full operative life: from the first N-Q filings on EDGAR in October 2003 through the form's rescission effective May 1, 2020 under the Investment Company Reporting Modernization rulemaking (Release No. IC-31610). After rescission, the holdings information was moved to Form N-PORT, a structured monthly XML filing with broader scope (risk metrics, derivatives exposures, securities lending, counterparty data) and a slightly different population (notably, it adds ETFs organized as UITs). Residual late N-Q/A amendments for pre-rescission periods may still appear.

Important distinctions

• Adviser vs. fund. The investment adviser does not file N-Q. Advisers that are institutional investment managers separately file Form 13F under Section 13(f) of the Exchange Act, a different regime entirely.
• Q2 and Q4 holdings. Second- and fourth-quarter portfolio schedules are not in the N-Q dataset; they live in Form N-CSR semi-annual and annual reports.
• Excluded entity types. Small business investment companies on Form N-5, business development companies (which report on Exchange Act forms such as 10-K and 10-Q), unit investment trusts, and face-amount certificate companies were never within the N-Q filer population.
• Filer vs. signer. The PEO and PFO sign the certifications, but the registered investment company entity is the filer of record.
• No pre-EDGAR history. Form N-Q was created by 2004 rulemaking and implemented through EDGAR from inception; there is no paper-era N-Q record.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form N-Q sits in a tight family of registered investment company (RIC) portfolio disclosures. The most useful comparisons are its successor (N-PORT), the shareholder reports covering the alternating fiscal quarters (N-CSR and N-CSRS), the money-market regime (N-MFP), the institutional-manager regime (13F), the pre-2004 semi-annual report it complemented (N-30D), and the fund registration statements (N-1A and N-2). Each overlaps on filer population, holdings content, or quarterly cadence, but none substitutes cleanly for N-Q across its 2003 to 2020 window.

Form N-PORT (with the public N-PORT-P / NT-NPORT subset)

Direct successor to N-Q. After the SEC's Investment Company Reporting Modernization rules took effect, N-Q was rescinded on May 1, 2020 and replaced by monthly N-PORT, with only the third month of each fiscal quarter made public on a 60-day delay.

• Cadence: monthly versus N-Q's Q1/Q3 only.
• Format: structured XML with hundreds of standardized fields (derivatives exposure, liquidity buckets, risk metrics, securities lending, repo, counterparties); N-Q was a narrative HTML/text schedule with a far narrower required field set.
• Public scope: every third N-PORT-P is public; every N-Q was public on filing.
• Coverage: N-PORT begins where N-Q ends and cannot back-fill 2003 to early 2020.

Form N-CSR and Form N-CSRS

Certified annual and semi-annual shareholder reports filed within 10 days of transmission to shareholders.

• Quarter coverage: N-CSR/N-CSRS report Q4 and Q2 fiscal quarter-ends; N-Q reported Q1 and Q3. Combined, the four filings produced quarterly holdings visibility through April 2020.
• Content scope: N-CSR/N-CSRS include audited or reviewed financial statements, MD&A-style discussion, board approvals, and SOX certifications. N-Q is essentially the schedule of investments plus officer certifications.
• Substitution: cannot replace N-Q for off-quarter holdings; a true quarterly time series for 2003 to 2020 requires both.

Form N-MFP

Monthly portfolio holdings report for money market funds under Rule 30b1-7. Disjoint from N-Q in practice.

• Filer population: money market funds only; N-Q covered non-money-market RICs.
• Cadence and content: monthly XML with money-market-specific fields (WAM, WAL, shadow NAV, security-level liquidity buckets) versus N-Q's quarterly free-form schedule.

Form 13F

Quarterly holdings report by institutional managers exercising discretion over $100M+ in Section 13(f) securities. Frequently confused with N-Q because both are quarterly.

• Reporting unit: manager-level (advisers, banks, insurers, pensions), often aggregating many funds and SMAs; N-Q is fund-level, one registrant per filing.
• Security scope: only the Section 13(f) list (mostly US-listed equities, certain options and convertibles); N-Q covered the full portfolio including bonds, foreign securities, derivatives, private placements, and cash equivalents.
• Position detail: 13F shows shares and market value only; N-Q includes coupon, maturity, and instrument-level descriptors for fixed income.
• Neither substitutes for the other: 13F misses fund-level and non-13(f) holdings; N-Q misses manager-level aggregation across non-RIC accounts.

Form N-30D

Pre-2004 semi-annual shareholder report. Before the SEC's 2004 portfolio rules, RICs disclosed holdings only semi-annually via N-30D, and N-Q was introduced to fill the Q1/Q3 gap. N-30D was largely superseded by N-CSR/N-CSRS in 2003. Holdings research extending before October 2003 relies on N-30D and accepts the loss of off-quarter snapshots.

Form N-1A and Form N-2

Registration statements for open-end funds and ETFs (N-1A) and closed-end funds (N-2). They define investment objectives, strategies, risks, fees, and share classes; they are filed at registration and amendment, not on a holdings cadence. Useful for identifying the universe of funds that should appear in N-Q and interpreting strategy context, but they contain no portfolio schedules and never substitute for N-Q.

Boundary summary

Form N-Q is the only public, fund-level, full-portfolio, off-quarter holdings record for non-money-market RICs between October 2003 and mid-2020. N-PORT supersedes it but does not back-fill it; N-CSR/N-CSRS cover the alternating quarters; N-MFP covers a different filer population; 13F uses a different reporting unit and a narrower security universe; N-30D predates it; N-1A/N-2 describe funds rather than holdings. For reconstructing pre-2020 quarterly RIC portfolios, N-Q paired with Form N-CSRS is the canonical source.

Who Uses This Dataset

Users of the Form N-Q Files dataset draw on the schedule-of-investments tables, the metadata.json identifiers (CIK, series ID, class ID, accession, period end), and the EX-99.CERT principal-officer certifications to anchor work to point-in-time, fund-level holdings during a window no other SEC form covers at quarterly cadence.

Academic finance researchers

Empirical researchers studying manager skill, herding, window dressing, and liquidity transformation use N-Q to fill the off-quarters not covered by N-CSR/N-CSRS. For the 2003 to 2020 window it is the only way to build quarterly fund-level holdings panels. They join the schedule of investments (security, CUSIP, quantity, fair value) to series and class identifiers to produce panels for working papers on portfolio concentration, active share, tax-loss harvesting, and crisis-period behavior in 2008 and 2020.

Quantitative researchers

Quant teams reconstruct lagged holdings panels for the pre-N-PORT era to backtest crowding, fund-replication, copy-trading, and front-running strategies. They parse the unstructured holdings tables out of HTML and text documents, normalize security identifiers, and align positions to fiscal-period-end dates from the metadata for event studies around corporate actions and macro shocks.

Manager-research and fund-of-funds analysts

Due diligence teams allocating to external sub-advisers verify what a manager actually held during the historical evaluation window, independent of marketing materials. Holdings detail supports style drift checks, factor-exposure attribution, overlap analysis between candidate funds, and tests of compliance with stated concentration or country limits across share classes grouped by series ID.

Fixed-income and credit analysts

Credit desks size aggregate fund ownership of specific bonds, ABS, and structured products. Schedules typically carry coupon, maturity, and par alongside fair value, supporting analysis of forced-selling pressure during liquidity events and identification of issuers that depended on registered-fund demand. Distressed and special-situations analysts use it to trace which funds held a now-defaulted credit at a given quarter-end.

Asset-management product strategists

Product and competitive intelligence teams inside fund complexes study how peer funds positioned themselves: sleeves run, benchmark deviation, sector rotation, cash and derivatives sizing. They compute peer overlap, active share, and exposure concentration to inform fee benchmarking, product-positioning, and teardowns of legacy strategies.

Fund administrators and compliance officers

Compliance, fund accounting, and administration teams maintain authoritative archives of what was filed and when. They consult metadata.json for accession numbers, filing dates, and N-Q/A amendment history, and retain EX-99.CERT certifications as evidence of Rule 30a-2 disclosure-controls representations during regulatory examinations covering legacy periods.

Securities litigators and forensic accountants

Plaintiff and defense counsel and forensic accountants in mutual fund litigation, ERISA claims, and shareholder disputes use N-Q to establish what a fund held on a specific date and what its officers certified. The schedule of investments grounds valuation, mispricing, and style-drift claims; EX-99.CERT exhibits anchor disclosure-control claims; N-Q/A amendments are reviewed line-by-line as evidence of restatements.

Data engineers at financial-data vendors

ETL teams at data vendors and at internal platforms inside asset managers, banks, and insurers backfill mutual fund holdings databases for the pre-N-PORT era. They ingest the ZIP archives, parse heterogeneous HTML and text holdings tables, normalize CUSIP/ticker/ISIN, and load records keyed by CIK, series ID, accession, and period end to power productized holdings APIs and internal risk panels.

Regulators and policy researchers

Supervisory and policy-analysis staff retrospectively study fund liquidity profiles, derivatives usage, securities-lending exposure, and concentration risk during stress episodes prior to the N-PORT regime. They compare disclosed holdings against trading, custody, and counterparty data to evaluate pre-2020 disclosure quality and calibrate expectations for the structured era.

Long-horizon historical-database curators

Specialist curators bridge the early-2000s holdings record with the structured N-PORT period that began in 2019 and 2020. They match series and class identifiers across regimes, reconcile fiscal-period conventions, and stitch quarterly snapshots into a coherent panel. N-Q/A amendment tracking is critical so restated holdings overwrite or supplement originals in the curated history.

LLM and document-understanding teams

Teams building RAG systems and document parsers for fund disclosures train and evaluate on the heterogeneous N-Q formats that preceded structured XML. The mix of HTML, text, and PDF primary documents alongside consistent metadata and certification exhibits provides a realistic corpus for table extraction, entity linking to security identifiers, and question-answering over historical fund filings.

Specific Use Cases

Concrete workflows the Form N-Q Files dataset supports across the 2003 to 2020 quarterly window.

• Backfilling pre-N-PORT quarterly holdings panels. Iterate the monthly ZIP archives, read each metadata.json for cik, seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[], periodOfReport, and formType, then parse the Item 1 schedule of investments out of the primary N-Q HTML to extract security name, CUSIP, quantity, fair value, and percent of net assets per line. Output is a long-format positions table keyed by CIK, series ID, accession, and period end that closes the Q1/Q3 gap that N-CSR/N-CSRS leaves and feeds quant backtests, active-share calculations, and fund-overlap studies.

• Tracing fund ownership of a specific bond or issuer through a credit event. Filter records by periodOfReport around the event window, parse the fixed-income sub-tables of Item 1 (issuer, coupon, maturity, par, fair value, Level 1/2/3 tag, footnote markers for restricted or illiquid securities), and aggregate par held across funds and series. Output is a per-CUSIP aggregate-ownership snapshot used by distressed-debt desks and litigation support to size forced-selling pressure and identify funds exposed to a defaulted credit at a quarter-end.

• Reconstructing a multi-series trust's full per-series portfolio history. Group records by filer CIK, walk seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] to enumerate each S000… series and its C000… classes, and split the repeated per-series Item 1 blocks in the primary HTML back to the right series identifier. The output is a tidy series-level holdings panel suitable for style-drift detection, concentration-limit testing, and peer-overlap analysis across share classes within the same trust.

• Auditing Rule 30a-2 certifications for compliance and litigation review. Locate the EX-99.CERT document in documentFormatFiles[], strip its SGML wrapper, and extract the four required certifications, the signing officer names and titles, and the certification date for both the principal executive officer and the principal financial officer. The output is a per-accession certification ledger that compliance teams retain as evidence during examinations and that plaintiff or defense counsel cite in disclosure-control claims.

• Tracking restatements via N-Q/A amendment chains. Select records where formType equals N-Q/A, then join back to the original by matching filer CIK and periodOfReport (no back-pointer field exists) and diff the Item 1 holdings tables line by line. The output is an amendments register showing which positions, valuations, or footnotes were restated, used by historical-database curators to overwrite originals and by forensic accountants to flag valuation revisions.

• Building a derivatives and securities-lending exposure dataset for stress-period research. Parse the futures, forwards, written options, and swap sub-tables inside Item 1 along with the ASC 820 fair-value hierarchy table and securities-on-loan footnotes, keyed by periodOfReport around 2008 and Q1 2020. The output is a per-fund exposure panel covering notional amounts, counterparties where disclosed, unrealized appreciation/depreciation, and Level 3 share, used for liquidity-transformation and counterparty-risk studies that pre-date the structured N-PORT regime.

• Training and evaluating table-extraction models on heterogeneous fund disclosures. Use metadata.json.documentFormatFiles[] to pair each primary N-Q HTML, PDF, or text payload with its filer-supplied filename and document type, then ground-truth-label a sample of holdings tables across years and filers. The output is a benchmark corpus for RAG and document-understanding systems that need to handle inconsistent column ordering, per-series subheadings, footnote markers, and mixed renderings before the N-PORT XML era.

Dataset Access

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-nq-files.json

This endpoint returns dataset metadata and the full list of monthly container files. It exposes top-level fields such as name, updatedAt, earliestSampleDate, totalRecords, totalSize, formTypes (N-Q, N-Q/A), containerFormat (ZIP), and fileTypes (TXT, JSON, HTML, PDF), along with a datasetDownloadUrl for the full archive. Each entry in the containers array provides the per-month key, downloadUrl, size, records, and updatedAt timestamp, which can be polled daily to detect which monthly containers were modified in the most recent refresh and selectively downloaded. This endpoint does not require an API key.

Example response:

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-68f0-af1a-020dec5be490",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https:/api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-nq-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form N-Q Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-28T02:51:19.000Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "2004-07-09",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 193897,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 5286515613,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["N-Q", "N-Q/A"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

          11
            "fileTypes": ["TXT", "JSON", "HTML", "PDF"],
        

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https:/api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-nq-files/2010/2010-05.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "2010/2010-05.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 138187830,
        

          17
                "records": 412,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-28T02:51:19.000Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-nq-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads the complete Form N-Q archive as a single ZIP file containing every monthly container. Each accession folder inside includes a metadata.json plus the original EDGAR submission documents (excluding image files). This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-nq-files/2010/2010-05.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads one monthly container ZIP using the downloadUrl returned by the dataset index. This is the recommended approach for incremental syncs and for working with a specific reporting period instead of pulling the full archive. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form N-Q and its amendment variant Form N-Q/A — the SEC's quarterly portfolio-holdings report for registered management investment companies under Rule 30b1-5 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. The form was adopted in 2004 and rescinded effective May 1, 2020 in favor of the monthly, structured Form N-PORT.

What does one record in the Form N-Q Files dataset represent?

One record is a single Form N-Q or Form N-Q/A submission as accepted by EDGAR, identified by its 18-digit SEC accession number. On disk, a record is a folder named after the de-dashed accession number that contains a metadata.json envelope plus the SGML-wrapped primary N-Q document and any attached exhibits (most commonly the EX-99.CERT officer certifications).

Who is required to file Form N-Q?

Registered open-end and closed-end management investment companies — mutual funds on Form N-1A, listed and non-listed closed-end funds and interval funds on Form N-2, and money market funds — filed Form N-Q. The legal filer of record is the registered fund entity itself; the principal executive officer and principal financial officer sign the Rule 30a-2 certifications but are not the filer. Small business investment companies on Form N-5, business development companies, unit investment trusts, and face-amount certificate companies were never within the N-Q population.

When were N-Q filings due?

Form N-Q was a periodic, fiscal-calendar-driven filing due within 60 days after the close of the registrant's first and third fiscal quarters. Because fund fiscal year-ends vary across the industry, N-Q filings spread across the calendar rather than clustering on calendar quarter-ends. The second and fourth fiscal quarters were not reported on N-Q because they were already covered by Form N-CSR and N-CSRS shareholder reports.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The dataset spans the form's full operative life: from the first N-Q filings on EDGAR in October 2003 through the form's rescission effective May 1, 2020, with a tail of late filings and N-Q/A amendments for pre-rescission periods continuing afterward. The earliest sample date exposed by the dataset index is 2004-07-09.

What file formats are inside each record?

Every record contains a metadata.json envelope plus the bytes of every non-image document EDGAR received. In practice this means the primary N-Q document (almost always HTML, occasionally plain text or PDF), the EX-99.CERT certifications, and any voluntary supplemental attachments — each preserved with its original SGML wrapper and original filename. Image attachments (GRAPHIC documents such as JPGs and GIFs) are intentionally stripped, and inline XBRL is essentially never present because Form N-Q never carried a structured-data tagging requirement.

How does this dataset differ from Form N-PORT?

Form N-PORT is the direct successor to Form N-Q and replaced it on May 1, 2020. N-PORT is filed monthly as structured XML with hundreds of standardized fields covering derivatives exposure, liquidity buckets, risk metrics, securities lending, and counterparties, and only every third monthly N-PORT is made public on a 60-day delay. Form N-Q, by contrast, was a quarterly (Q1 and Q3) narrative HTML/text schedule that was public on filing. N-PORT begins where N-Q ends and cannot back-fill the 2003 to early 2020 window — for that period, the Form N-Q Files dataset paired with N-CSR/N-CSRS is the canonical source for fund-level holdings.