30filers, current period
38the period before
3controls it touches
2frameworks
Material Weakness in 10-K and 10-Q filings, by month.
The phrase was already in use in the first month we hold, so this shows how it has moved since rather than when it began.
Companies disclosing it
30
wrote this into a filing with the SEC
What it obligates
3
controls across 2 frameworks whose text speaks to it
Employers hiring for it
82
open US roles name it, and the ones below are hiring now
The long view, in 8-K filings
An 8-K is filed within four business days of an event, so this counts filings made because something happened.
Every month since 2008. The last point is the current month and is still
filling, so it always looks lower than it will be.
2008
peak 419 in November 2021
2026
Who disclosed it
From SEC full-text search over 8-K filings. Every row links to the filing itself.
| Company | Form | Filed | |
|---|
| Optimum Communications, Inc. OPTU | 8-K | 2026-09-21 | filing |
| Stark Focus Group, Inc. SKFG | 8-K | 2026-09-16 | filing |
| Astrana Health, Inc. ASTH | 8-K | 2026-09-15 | filing |
| FDCTECH, INC. FDCT | 8-K | 2026-09-22 | filing |
| AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. AXON | 8-K | 2026-09-21 | filing |
| Sadot Group Inc. SDOT | 8-K | 2026-09-17 | filing |
| BROWN FORMAN CORP | 8-K | 2026-09-21 | filing |
| USA Rare Earth, Inc. USAR | 8-K | 2026-09-15 | filing |
| CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORP | 8-K | 2026-09-15 | filing |
| PULSE BIOSCIENCES, INC. PLSE | 8-K | 2026-09-15 | filing |
| Evergy, Inc. EVRG | 8-K | 2026-09-16 | filing |
| EVERGY KANSAS CENTRAL, INC. | 8-K | 2026-09-16 | filing |
The full search on EDGAR
Who is hiring for it
A sample of the open roles naming this phrase. An employer paying a salary
against something is the least ambiguous demand signal there is, and every row links to the
posting so the claim can be checked rather than believed. The total above is the whole US
market; these are the ones we hold the posting for.
How it actually arrives
An 8-K's meaning is in its item number, not its text. These are the items the filings
containing this phrase were filed under. The first group is something that happened to the
company. The second is the phrase turning up in the ordinary course of reporting, most often in
an earnings release, which is a very different thing and is usually the larger number.
| Filed because something happened |
Companies |
|---|
| Other material event Item 8.01 | 2084 |
| Financial statements no longer reliable Item 4.02 | 806 |
| Director or officer departure Item 5.02 | 754 |
| Change of accountant Item 4.01 | 675 |
| Delisting or listing rule failure Item 3.01 | 87 |
| Bankruptcy or receivership Item 1.03 | 10 |
| Material impairment Item 2.06 | 8 |
| Mentioned in routine reporting |
Companies |
|---|
| Financial statements and exhibits Item 9.01 | 3988 |
| Entry into a material agreement Item 1.01 | 3163 |
| Regulation FD disclosure Item 7.01 | 1696 |
| Results of operations, the earnings release Item 2.02 | 554 |
| Completion of an acquisition Item 2.01 | 354 |
| Shareholder vote Item 5.07 | 86 |
This is why a headline count on its own overstates the case.
Where the routine number dominates, the phrase is being tracked as language rather than as
events.
Which industries file it
Companies grouped by the industry classification on their own filing. A count, not a
survey.
| Industry | | Companies |
|---|
| Holding and investment offices | | 921 |
| Chemicals and pharmaceuticals | | 697 |
| Banking | | 320 |
| Software and IT services | | 307 |
| Instruments and medical devices | | 205 |
| Electronics and electrical equipment | | 179 |
| Mining and extraction | | 175 |
| Retail | | 137 |
| Services and entertainment | | 129 |
| Industrial machinery | | 122 |
What it obligates
Our corpus holds 3 controls across
2 frameworks whose text speaks to this. Not a judgement:
these controls say so, and each is one lookup from its source document. Ordered by how much each
framework has to say about it, so the one that will cost you the most work is first. Every name
opens that framework in the corpus.
What an auditor will ask you to produce
The artefacts named on those controls, most frequently cited first.
- Remediation plans with named accountable owners
- Root cause analyses
- Evidence open items remain in the operational risk profile until closed
- PCAOB AS 2201 evidence for ASTWO-8
- PCAOB AS 2201 evidence for ASTWO-7
How it usually fails
Recorded when each control was verified against its source. This is where programmes
that think they are covered turn out not to be.
- walkthroughs documentation + deficiency severity assessment + EQR documentation partial
- Symptoms fixed without root cause analysis
- Items removed from the risk profile before remediation completed
COSO 2013 Internal Control Integrated Framework Evidence & Implementation Kit
23 controls sit behind COSO Internal Control, and this is the documentation set for them: an adopt-ready artifact per control, and the evidence an auditor asks for against each.
See what is in it, $249
The same set every buyer of this kit receives. Nothing here is produced on request.
23If you already run COSO Internal Control, that is the 23 controls behind this disclosure, already evidenced.
25And COBIT 2019 is not a separate programme. 25 of its controls are the same controls. If it is on next year's plan, that part of it is already done.
Run as two programmes
48 controls
COSO Internal Control and COBIT 2019 scoped separately, each with its own
evidence, its own owner and its own budget line. This is how almost everybody does it.
Run once, counted twice
25 already done
25 of COBIT 2019's controls are controls you evidenced for
COSO Internal Control. Same artefacts, same owner, no second effort. The mapping is the
only reason anybody knows.
Material Weakness in 10-K and 10-Q filings, by month.
The phrase was already in use in the first month we hold, so this shows how it has moved since rather than when it began.
What this actually means
- Why now
- 30 public companies wrote this into an 8-K in the last seven days, 21% fewer than the seven before. That is not sentiment or a survey. It is a count of companies choosing to put a phrase into a document they are legally accountable for.
- Who already cares
- 82 open US roles name this work today, which suggests increased attention to it beyond what any filing says. A job advertisement clears a budget holder and a filing clears legal, so the two answer to different people. We have not measured which moves first, only that both are moving.
- What comes into scope
- Once the phrase is on the record it maps to obligations within COSO Internal Control, PCAOB AS 2201. 27 controls behind those, and the difference between asserting them and evidencing them is the whole of the work.
- Who is quietly ahead
- Anyone already running COSO Internal Control has done 25 of the controls that carry COBIT 2019 too. Same evidence, second standard. Most organisations run those as two programmes with two budgets because nobody told them the mapping existed.
- Who is exposed
- 82 companies disclosed this for the first time in the last ninety days, out of 4262 in total. A first mention is a company deciding it can no longer not say it. Whoever has not yet is either genuinely unaffected or has not looked, and nothing here distinguishes the two.
What this obligates
The instruments in our corpus that govern this disclosure, and how many controls sit
behind each. This is not a filing count. It is what applies once a company has written the
phrase down.
2 frameworks, 27 controls between them.
COSO Internal Control holds 72 controls. They appear again inside
222 other frameworks in our corpus; the 10 strongest are shown. Thickness and
size both carry the number of controls shared, so work done once counts in every framework on
this diagram.
What closing it also moves
The same controls appear in other frameworks through mappings held in our corpus. Work
done here is already progress there. This is the part that is not in EDGAR and not in any public
dataset: it comes from mappings built and verified by hand, control by control.
Counted as controls reached through cross-framework mappings. It measures
overlap of work, not compliance with the named framework.
Run as two programmes
48 controls
COSO Internal Control and COBIT 2019 scoped separately, each with its own
evidence, its own owner and its own budget line. This is how almost everybody does it.
Run once, counted twice
25 already done
25 of COBIT 2019's controls are controls you evidenced for
COSO Internal Control. Same artefacts, same owner, no second effort. The mapping is the
only reason anybody knows.
23If you already run COSO Internal Control, that is the 23 controls behind this disclosure, already evidenced.
25And COBIT 2019 is not a separate programme. 25 of its controls are the same controls. If it is on next year's plan, that part of it is already done.
Tell me when Material Weakness files something new
One email when a public company newly discloses this, naming the company and what our corpus says it puts in scope. Nothing else, and one click to stop.
Where this comes from
The left half is public record: SEC full-text search over 8-K filings, counted across a
7 day window against the equivalent window before it. You can check
every row.
The right half is ours: 723 frameworks and
20,473 controls, 531 of those frameworks verified against
their source documents, with the auditor evidence and common failure modes recorded control by
control. Controls appear here because their own text names this term.
Cite this
The Art of Service Signals. Material Weakness corporate disclosure activity: 30 filers against 38 in the prior period, in 8-K filings over seven days against the seven before. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://signals.theartofservice.com/t/material-weakness/
Free to use with attribution, no permission needed. The chart downloads as an SVG
with the source printed on it. If you cite it we would like to know, but you do not need to
ask.
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