Side-by-side comparison of annual reports and financials across four companies

Resolves four tickers to CIKs, pulls the latest 10-K XBRL for each, and produces a print-ready comparison: source filings, income statement with growth and CAGR, ratios, balance sheet, cash flow and capital returns, with every non-comparable figure flagged.

Prompt

Using the SEC-API.io MCP server, build a comparison of Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and NVIDIA from the latest 10-K of each.

Order of operations: resolve each ticker to a CIK, find the most recent 10-K per company, pull the XBRL statements, compute, then build.

Sections: (1) source filings table with CIK, fiscal year, period end, filing date, accession number; (2) two charts side by side, revenue over the last three fiscal years and margins for the latest year; (3) income statement for the latest fiscal year including year-on-year growth and three-year CAGR; (4) ratios: margins, R&D intensity, effective tax rate, ROE, ROA, asset turnover, current ratio, leverage; (5) balance sheet at the latest year end; (6) two charts, operating cash flow against capex and capex as % of revenue over three years, then a cash flow and capital returns table; (7) six or seven factual observations with the numbers inline, no recommendations or forecasts.

Charts: greyscale only, hatch patterns to separate series, no colour, serif labels, no top or right axis borders.

Format: A4 PDF, black and white, dense, around 7pt tables, USD millions, negatives in parentheses.

State explicitly that the fiscal year ends are not aligned, and name the tag used wherever filers tag the same concept differently (Alphabet does not tag GrossProfit; the D&A and capex tags differ between the four).

Output

Seven sections over three A4 pages: source filings, income statement, ratios, balance sheet, cash flow and capital returns, and closing observations.

When to use this prompt

• Comparing companies whose fiscal years do not line up, where a screen would silently compare different periods.
• Producing a document to circulate or print, rather than a chart to look at once.
• Working from as-filed XBRL, where each number can be traced to an accession number.

What you get back

• A source filings table first, with CIK, fiscal year end, filing date and accession number, so every later figure is traceable.
• The fiscal-year problem stated up front rather than buried. Microsoft ends 30 June 2026, Alphabet 31 December 2025, Apple 27 September 2025 and NVIDIA 25 January 2026, a spread of about nine months, with no calendarisation applied.
• The XBRL tag named wherever filers tag the same concept differently. Alphabet does not tag us-gaap:GrossProfit at all, so its gross margin is derived from Revenues less CostOfRevenue, and revenue comes from us-gaap:Revenues for Alphabet and NVIDIA but RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax for Microsoft and Apple.
• Income statement, ratios, balance sheet and cash flow in one document, plus factual observations with the numbers inline and no recommendations.

Variations

• Change the four companies, or extend to a larger peer set.
• Calendarise to a common twelve months, which the report deliberately does not do.
• Restrict to one section, such as the ratio table, for a shorter document.
• Run it each quarter against the latest 10-Q instead of the 10-K.

Filings used

• Microsoft Corporation FY2026 Form 10-K, CIK 789019, period ended June 30 2026, filed July 29 2026, accession 0001193125-26-323660.
• Alphabet Inc. FY2025 Form 10-K, CIK 1652044, period ended December 31 2025, filed February 4 2026.
• Apple Inc. FY2025 Form 10-K, CIK 320193, period ended September 27 2025, filed October 31 2025.
• NVIDIA Corporation FY2026 Form 10-K, CIK 1045810, period ended January 25 2026, filed February 25 2026.

Related prompts