Palanor reads the public records U.S. agencies keep about companies and banks, joins them to the company graph, and turns them into three things: a Risk events timeline on each company's page, filters in the Entity Screener, and national signals you can chart and watch.
The sources
- Product recalls (CPSC): every recall the Consumer Product Safety Commission announces, with the firms named as manufacturer, importer or distributor. Retailers are not treated as responsible.
- Vehicle and equipment recalls (NHTSA): every safety recall campaign, with the manufacturer that filed the defect report and the number of vehicles or units that may be affected.
- EPA enforcement cases (ECHO): federal civil cases, administrative and judicial, dated when they reach a final order, with the defendants named and the federal penalty. People named as defendants are never shown by name.
- CFPB complaints: the number of complaints the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau receives about each company each month. A complaint spike is a month with at least 100 complaints and at least three times the company's average over the 12 months before. The database is not a statistical sample, and it no longer publishes what consumers wrote, so Palanor keeps counts only.
- OSHA inspections (Department of Labor): every inspection OSHA opens, dated when it opens, with the employer named and the reason (an accident or fatality, a complaint, a referral, a planned inspection). An inspection is not a finding that the employer broke a rule.
- Wage and Hour cases (Department of Labor): concluded Wage and Hour Division cases with back wages agreed, dated when the investigation's findings end, with the back wages and the number of employees owed. Case dates fill in more than a year late, so these appear as events only, with no monthly series.
On a company's page
The Risk events section lists the newest events first, each linked to its government record, with the size (vehicles recalled, units, the EPA penalty) and counts for the last 12 months by source. It includes events naming the company's subsidiaries (through the GLEIF parent tree), and shows which subsidiary was named. A bar chart shows the company's CFPB complaints by month. Alert me on new events sets an alert for the company.
Records name companies as their filers spell them. Palanor links a name only when it matches one company in the graph exactly (a listed company wins over private companies of the same name, and legal forms must agree), so some events are not linked and none should be linked to the wrong company. A recall or a case is not a judgment about how the company compares with its peers.
In the screener and alerts
In the Entity Screener, company rows have Risk events, 12 mo, Risk sources, Last risk event and CFPB complaints, 12 mo columns, and filters for each. Banks is its own type (see below). In the Alerts center, Risk events watches one company (set from its page) or any company whose name contains a word, for every source or the ones you pick. It checks every hour.
National signals
- CFPB complaints (cfpb.complaints.*): the monthly total, the total without credit reporting (which dominates since 2022), eight product groups kept comparable across CFPB's renames, the share answered late, and the share closed with money returned. From December 2011.
- CPSC recalls (cpsc.recalls.*): recalls and units each month, and over 12 months the share of recalls made in China and the share naming fire or burn, battery, choking or ingestion, and suffocation or entrapment hazards. From 2010.
- NHTSA recalls (nhtsa.recalls.*): vehicle campaigns and vehicles affected each month, equipment, tire and child seat campaigns, and over 12 months the share of vehicle recalls whose defect or fix names software, and the share naming high-voltage (EV) batteries. From 2010.
- EPA enforcement (epa.enforcement.*): cases reaching a final order each month, federal penalties each quarter, and quarterly cases by industry for the cases that list one. From 2010.
- OSHA inspections (osha.inspections, osha.inspections.accident): inspections opened each month, all of them and those opened after an accident or fatality. From 2010. A month is published two full months after it ends, because OSHA records inspections a few weeks after they open and state-plan states later still.
The hazard, software and battery shares match words in the agencies' own summaries; the word lists were fixed before anything was counted and are printed in each signal's methodology.
Banks
Every insured bank files a Call Report each quarter. From the FFIEC's bulk files Palanor keeps a few measures per bank and builds signals for all banks and by size (under $1 billion, $1 to $10 billion, $10 to $100 billion, $100 billion and over), from 2008:
- Noncurrent loan rate (banks.noncurrent_rate.*, from 2017) and CRE noncurrent rate (banks.cre_noncurrent_rate.*): loans 90 days or more past due or on nonaccrual.
- CRE concentration (banks.cre_concentration.*, the median bank) and the share of banks above 300% of capital (banks.cre_over_300_share.*).
- Deposits (banks.deposits_yoy.*): the change from a year earlier for the banks that were in the size band a year earlier, so mergers net out.
- Unrealized securities gains or losses against tier 1 capital (banks.securities_gain_loss_t1.*).
Each bank appears in the screener under Banks, and on its company page when its charter name matches a company in the graph. Palanor Foresight reads the CRE noncurrent rate with its leading partners.
How fresh it is
CPSC, NHTSA, CFPB, OSHA and Wage and Hour update daily, EPA weekly, Call Reports weekly (a quarter's reports are complete about 45 days after it ends). CFPB publishes complaints after the company responds or after 15 days, so the latest month or two keep rising for a few weeks.
Sources
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (SaferProducts.gov recall API); National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (recalls data); U.S. EPA, Enforcement and Compliance History Online; U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA and Wage and Hour Division enforcement data (DOL Open Data Portal); Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Complaint Database; Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, Central Data Repository. All are public U.S. government records. Report errors to support@palanor.com.