SEC Watch is The Investigative Journal’s daily review of notable filings on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system, along with enforcement actions announced by the agency. Every item below is drawn from public records, with direct links to the underlying documents.
Wednesday’s after-market filing window was unusually dense. Cisco closed out a record fiscal year and told investors a “networking supercycle” is underway, Home Depot disclosed that its chief executive is taking a temporary medical leave, and AI chipmaker Cerebras filed a quarterly report showing rapid growth alongside a heavy post-IPO loss. Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management filed its second-quarter 13-F two days ahead of Friday’s deadline, and the SEC’s Enforcement Division pressed forward with accounting-fraud charges against a publicly traded crowdfunding company. Here is what stands out.
1. Cisco reports a record year and raises its AI infrastructure targets
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) filed an Item 2.02 Form 8-K on August 12 attaching its fourth-quarter and fiscal 2026 results. According to the earnings release, fourth-quarter revenue was $17.3 billion, up 18 percent year over year, with GAAP earnings of $0.97 per share, up 52 percent. For the full fiscal year ended July 25, 2026, revenue was $63.3 billion, up 12 percent — a growth rate Cisco has rarely printed in the past decade. “We delivered a very strong close to fiscal 2026, marking another record year for Cisco,” chief executive Chuck Robbins said in the release.
The AI disclosures are the substance of the story. The release states Cisco took $4 billion of AI infrastructure orders from hyperscale customers in the fourth quarter alone, bringing fiscal 2026 AI orders to $9.3 billion; the company says it delivered roughly $4 billion of AI infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2026 and expects $7.5 billion in fiscal 2027. Total product orders rose 35 percent in the quarter — still up 25 percent excluding hyperscalers — and networking orders grew 40 percent, the eighth straight quarter of double-digit growth, according to the company.
Guidance is equally aggressive: Cisco projects fiscal 2027 revenue of $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion, which at the midpoint implies roughly 15 percent growth on top of a record base. The figures suggest investors should watch customer concentration — the filing’s own framing separates hyperscaler demand from the rest of the book, and the gap between the two growth rates is now material. Cisco’s investor relations page is here.
2. Home Depot’s CEO takes medical leave; two veterans will run an office of the CEO
The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) filed a Form 8-K under Items 5.02 and 7.01 disclosing that chair, president and chief executive Ted Decker will take a temporary medical leave of absence. The attached announcement says the company expects Decker to return “within the next few months.” In the interim, senior executive vice president Ann-Marie Campbell will oversee day-to-day operations while chief financial officer Richard McPhail oversees financial management and the company’s Pro subsidiaries. Independent lead director Greg Brenneman will chair the board during the leave.
The structure is notable for what it is not: the board did not name an interim CEO. Instead, the filing describes an office-of-the-CEO arrangement split between two long-tenured executives, made “in alignment with Decker’s recommendation.” Brenneman said the board is “confident in Ann-Marie’s and Richard’s ability to lead the company during this time.” CEO-health disclosure is a recurring governance debate — boards must balance an executive’s privacy against the materiality of leadership uncertainty at a company with, per the release, more than 470,000 employees and 2,361 stores. Home Depot’s disclosure, filed the same day as the announcement, is on the prompt end of recent practice. Records to watch next: any follow-on Item 5.02 filings amending the arrangement. Investor relations page here.
3. Cerebras’ 10-Q: revenue up 74 percent, and a $450 million quarterly loss driven by stock compensation
Cerebras Systems (Nasdaq: CBRS), the wafer-scale AI chipmaker, filed its quarterly report for the period ended June 30. XBRL data in the filing show second-quarter revenue of $180.1 million, up 74 percent from $103.3 million a year earlier, with first-half revenue of $373.5 million, up 84 percent. The same data show a second-quarter net loss of $450.5 million and an operating loss of $477.2 million.
The loss appears to be dominated by non-cash charges: the filing reports first-half stock-based compensation of $386.6 million, versus $22.4 million in the prior-year period — a pattern consistent with equity awards recognized after a public listing. Two details warrant attention beyond the headline growth. First, second-quarter revenue of $180.1 million was sequentially below the $193.4 million Cerebras reported for the first quarter. Second, the filing shows second-quarter gross profit of $25.6 million — roughly 14 percent of revenue — a reminder that building AI hardware carries a very different margin profile than selling AI software. The company’s site is cerebras.ai.
4. Trian’s 13-F: Janus Henderson and Invesco trimmed, GE HealthCare rebuilt
Trian Fund Management, the vehicle of Nelson Peltz, filed its second-quarter Form 13F-HR on August 12, disclosing $4.23 billion in U.S.-listed equity positions as of June 30 across eight issuers. The largest holdings listed are GE Aerospace at $1.51 billion, Janus Henderson at $1.33 billion and Solventum at $635 million.
Compared with the firm’s first-quarter filing, the information tables show Trian cut its Janus Henderson stake to 25.65 million shares from 31.87 million — a reduction of roughly 19 percent in a company where Trian has long been the anchor shareholder — and cut Invesco to 1.63 million shares from 2.97 million, a roughly 45 percent reduction. In the other direction, the filings show the GE HealthCare position rising to 3.09 million shares from 4,044, effectively rebuilding a stake that had been nearly eliminated. Positions in Ferguson, Solventum and the Magnum Ice Cream Company were unchanged, and Wendy’s was essentially flat. The usual caveats apply: 13-F filings capture long U.S. positions only, on a 45-day lag, and omit shorts, swaps and non-U.S. holdings.
5. Reddit’s chief legal officer steps down
Reddit (NYSE: RDDT) disclosed in an Item 5.02 Form 8-K that Benjamin Lee notified the company on August 12 of his intention to step down as chief legal officer and corporate secretary, effective September 14, remaining an employee through September 25 to assist the transition. The filing states Reddit expects to appoint Paul Cappuccio — described as bringing “deep leadership experience as a public company general counsel, executive, and board director” — to the role. Legal-chief transitions at platform companies are worth logging: the general counsel’s office sits atop content-liability, AI-licensing and regulatory files that are material to the business. Reddit’s investor page is here.
6. American Express creates a new 6.450% preferred series
American Express (NYSE: AXP) filed a Form 8-K under Items 3.03, 5.03 and 8.01 attaching a certificate of amendment that creates a new series of preferred shares designated “6.450% Fixed Rate Reset Noncumulative Preferred Shares, Series E,” together with an underwriting agreement and a deposit agreement — the standard document set for a public offering of depositary shares. For a large bank holding company, preferred issuance is routine capital-stack management, but the reset-rate structure and 6.450 percent initial rate are a useful data point on what top-tier financial issuers are paying for perpetual capital in the current rate environment.
7. Pershing Square Inc. reports its second quarter as a listed manager
Pershing Square Inc. (NYSE: PS), Bill Ackman’s listed management company, filed an Item 2.02 Form 8-K reporting second-quarter 2026 results, with the detail contained in a presentation and shareholder letter posted to the company’s site. The release notes the company paid a dividend of $0.122 per common share on July 21 and that Ackman and chief investment officer Ryan Israel will host an earnings call Thursday morning, followed by a public question-and-answer session on X. The disclosure cadence of a newly listed asset manager — which earns fees on permanent-capital vehicles rather than returns on its own balance sheet alone — remains a story TIJ is tracking as the model faces its first full public-market year.
8. Enforcement: SEC alleges a public crowdfunding company inflated revenue 345 percent
The Commission’s most significant enforcement action of the week targets Netcapital Inc., a publicly traded funding-portal operator. According to Litigation Release No. 26607, the SEC on August 10 charged Netcapital and five individuals — John Fanning, who allegedly functioned as an officer without formal designation; his wife Coreen Kraysler, the chief financial officer; former CEO Martin Kay; CPA Paul Riss; and former CEO Cecilia Lenk — in an alleged scheme to overstate revenue while the company raised more than $25 million from investors.
The complaint, filed in federal court in Boston, alleges that from approximately October 2021 through January 2024 Netcapital improperly recognized nearly $14 million in revenue from sham consulting agreements — some of which were allegedly forged — overstating revenue by approximately 345 percent, and that the inflated figures appeared in SEC filings and offering materials. The alleged conduct ran through a subsidiary that purportedly provided consulting to startups raising money under Regulation Crowdfunding, the very ecosystem Netcapital’s platform serves. These are allegations, not findings; none of the defendants has been adjudicated liable, and the case is pending. The timing is worth noting: the SEC announced on August 5 that it has re-established a dedicated Financial Reporting and Accounting Unit in the Enforcement Division, and this complaint is precisely the kind of case that unit exists to bring.
9. Enforcement: pre-IPO fund adviser charged over SpaceX and Klarna investment claims
In a companion action for the private-markets file, the SEC announced charges against New York-based Adit Ventures Management LLC, its CEO Eric Munson, and three affiliated general partners over an alleged fraud involving funds marketed on access to pre-IPO shares of companies such as SpaceX and Klarna. Per Litigation Release No. 26605 and the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, the defendants allegedly misappropriated client assets from at least April 2019 through December 2024, including by taking unauthorized unsecured loans from the funds, buying pre-IPO shares themselves and reselling them to client funds at marked-up prices, and charging millions in undisclosed fees.
“Investment advisers are entrusted with acting in their clients’ best interests,” said Corey A. Schuster, chief of the Enforcement Division’s Asset Management Unit, in the agency’s release. The allegations remain untested in court. The case lands amid sustained retail appetite for pre-IPO exposure to marquee private names — a segment where pricing opacity makes the alleged markup scheme difficult for investors to detect, and one TIJ has flagged before as structurally prone to abuse.
On TIJ’s radar
Filings that may warrant deeper investigation in the days ahead. First, the 13-F wave crests this week: most large managers, including Berkshire Hathaway, historically file at or near the 45-day deadline, which falls Friday, August 14, and we will map the quarter’s big rotations once the tables land. Second, the Netcapital docket in Massachusetts federal court: answers, any settlement filings, and what the case means for the lightly policed Regulation Crowdfunding portal ecosystem merit a standalone TIJ examination. Third, Cerebras’ filings deserve continued scrutiny of the sequential revenue decline and the stock-compensation cadence as post-listing awards continue to vest. Fourth, Home Depot: any amendment to the interim leadership arrangement would itself be a material disclosure. And fifth, American Express’s new preferred series joins a growing 2026 sample of bank capital raises worth aggregating for what they say about funding costs.
Method and fairness notes: This digest is compiled entirely from public records — SEC EDGAR filings, litigation releases and Commission press releases — linked throughout. SEC complaints contain allegations that defendants are entitled to contest; no court has ruled on the merits of the Netcapital or Adit Ventures cases, and this article should not be read as suggesting otherwise. The companies and individuals named were not contacted for comment for this digest; any party wishing to respond may contact The Investigative Journal and responses will be noted in future coverage. Filings data referenced from EDGAR’s current-filings feed and company XBRL disclosures as of the morning of August 13, 2026.
Featured image: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters, Washington, D.C. Photo by David (Flickr: dbking), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.