Precrime: Structural-Metadata Screening of Pre-Financial Securities Issuers on EDGAR

A position & methodology paper · June 2026

This paper publishes the design and methodology of Precrime, a software system that screens securities issuers from raw EDGAR structural metadata — before any analyzable financial statement exists. Rather than fitting a classifier on filed financials, it begins from the outcome — published DOJ and SEC enforcement pleadings — and works backward to the structural fingerprints those matters left in the filing record. Postcrime labels train precrime flags.

37,619

labeled DOJ-SDNY + SEC litigation-release documents

6.6 yr

mean lead time, first structural signal → enforcement

650+

entities / CIKs run in parallel (Exemplar 1)

18 mo

watchlist re-evaluation cadence

postcrime.atsignhandle.xyz · securities-anomaly research instrument