International Journal of Graphic Design
Vol. 4 No. 1 (2026): April | IJGD: International Journal of Graphic Design

From 8-K to Deal Cards: A Source-Grounded Visual Triage Framework for FinTech M&A Filings

Sisi Meng (Accounting, University of Rochester, NY, USA)
Dingyuan Zhang (Business Analytics, University of Rochester, NY, USA)
Eric Li (Applied Analytics, Columbia University, NY, USA)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Apr 2026

Abstract

Form 8-K is a timely public channel through which U.S. registrants disclose material events, including acquisition agreements, completed transactions, shareholder communications, and related exhibits. The density of this filing stream creates a visual communication problem: analysts need to identify source-linked deal cues without losing the legal and temporal provenance of each record. This study presents a source-grounded deal-card workflow for FinTech M&A filing triage. The analysis used the official SEC quarterly master indexes and included 16,439 Form 8-K and 8-K/A filings in Q4 2025, together with 276,261 contextual records in the complete Q4 index. Symmetric companion-form windows were protected against quarter-boundary truncation with the last 14 days of Q3 2025 and the first 14 days of Q1 2026. A seven-day window identified 222 rule-defined FinTech M&A targets across 94 company names, or 1.35% of the Q4 corpus. In five-fold cross-validation grouped by CIK, text-only logistic triage reached F1 = 0.224 and M&A-context logistic triage reached F1 = 0.322. Integrated logistic and linear SVM configurations reproduced the rule-defined target exactly (F1 = 1.000). Because the target was constructed from the same FinTech and M&A-neighborhood cues available to those configurations, this exact agreement is interpreted as rule-consistency validation rather than predictive superiority. A structural interface audit found that the deal-card schema exposed 10 documented fields, nine visual anchors, and six configured decision cues. These author-defined attributes describe interface structure; they do not measure comprehension, trust, or review speed. The contribution is a method for organizing SEC filing evidence for subsequent visual review.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

ijgd

Publisher

Subject

Arts Computer Science & IT

Description

This journal is a peer-reviewed and open Visual Communication Design Publication Journal. The fields of study in this journal include the sub-groups of Performing Arts, Arts, journalistic, Crafts, Media, and Design. The Art, Design, and Media ...