Executive Departures at S&P 500 Companies (8-K Item 5.02, monthly)

## What this measures

The number of original Form 8-K filings each calendar month in which an S&P 500 company reports, under Item 5.02, that one of its executive officers is leaving: a resignation, retirement, termination, step-down or death of a chief executive, chief financial officer, president, other chief officer, general counsel, treasurer or controller. Each point is dated the first day of the month and counts filings, not people. The point's metadata splits out filings that name a departing CEO or CFO.

## Why it matters

Companies must file an 8-K within four business days when a principal officer leaves. A rise in departures across large companies is an early read on boardroom pressure, restructuring, succession waves and strain in particular sectors, before it shows up in results. CEO and CFO exits are the ones markets react to most.

## How to read it

The series has run at roughly 20 to 40 filings a month since late 2023. Read it against its own trailing twelve-month average: a sustained climb means more executives are leaving large companies than usual. Seasonal bumps around year end and proxy season are normal. The CEO and CFO counts in each point's metadata are the sharper, smaller read.

## What it does not say

It does not say why anyone left: planned retirements and orderly successions count the same as abrupt exits. Departures are identified from the filing's own sentences with fixed patterns (a departure word and an officer title in the same sentence), not read by a person; a hand-checked sample is reported in the build notes. Director-only departures, appointments and compensation-only 5.02 filings are excluded, as are amendments and sentences that re-report an earlier filing. One filing can cover several people. The universe is current S&P 500 members applied to all history, so companies that joined recently count in earlier months.

## Source

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR Form 8-K filings, Item 5.02 (Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers). Public domain. Every counted filing is listed with its accession number and link through the Palanor events API and the /events page.

## Revision — 2026-09-26

Universe updated to current S&P 500 constituents (8 out, 3 in). Out: Builders FirstSource, Molson Coors and The Trade Desk, which left the index on 21 September 2026; Electronic Arts, which was taken private and left on 5 August 2026; and MongoDB, Cloudflare, Snowflake and Zoom, which were never members and had been included in error since May 2026. In: Bloom Energy, Everpure and Illumina, which joined on 21 September 2026. Membership now comes from a dated constituent list refreshed monthly. The corrected list applies from 26 September 2026. Readings before that date are unchanged.