What gets diffedFive sections carry the news. Those are the five we isolate.
A 10-K is not one document. It is a set of Item sections with different jobs, and a change in the risk factors means something different from a change in the business description. Each is located by its own Item heading and diffed against the same section of the prior filing, never against the document as a whole.
- Item 1ARisk Factorswhat they now say could go wrong
- Item 7MD&Ahow management explains the quarter
- Item 1Business Descriptionwhat the company says it is
- Item 8Financial Statementsthe statements and their notes
- Item 3Legal Proceedingswhat is being litigated
Each section carries its own vocabulary, so the tone reading is per section rather than one average for a 200-page document. When a heading cannot be located in both filings, that section returns empty rather than diffing whole documents into noise.