SEC aims for a more interactive EDGAR

In a move intended to make SEC filings more user-friendly for investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced the "successor to the agency's 1980s-era EDGAR database, which will give investors far faster and easier access to key financial information about public companies and mutual funds."

The IDEA behind the Interactive Data Electronic Applications system is to make it so that investors can compare data between multiple SEC filings more easily, without having to open up new tabs.

While it's certainly a step in the right direction for investor-friendliness, it's actually bad news for sophisticated investors: the people who find undervalued stocks by seeking out mispricings caused by investors who don't analyze/understand the businesses they're looking at.

Look at what's happened in the foreclosure market: savvy investors used to be able to make million there but, as online databases have made searches of distressed properties possible in seconds, the deals aren't what they used to be.

As new rules and disclosures increase, so will market efficiency -- that's good for the market but bad for some of its participants.