Insider trades (Form 4)
- Every business day we read the SEC's daily index of filings and download each Form 4 and Form 4/A filed that day from EDGAR.
- We keep only non-derivative transactions with code P (purchase) or S (sale). Grants, option exercises, tax withholding, gifts and other codes are left out.
- Value is shares times the reported price per share. When a filing reports a weighted average price, our value uses that average.
- Role comes from the relationship boxes and officer title on the form. When one filing lists several reporting owners, we show the first and combine their roles.
- A trade is marked 10b5-1 when the filing's 10b5-1 checkbox is ticked, or, on older forms without the checkbox, when a footnote says the trade was made under a Rule 10b5-1 plan.
- Amendments (Form 4/A) that repeat an original trade are dropped so the trade is not counted twice.
- The ticker comes from the SEC's company ticker list matched by the company's CIK number, or from the symbol on the form when the SEC list has none.
- A cluster buy means two or more different insiders at the same company each reported at least $10,000 of open-market purchases within the period shown. The floor leaves out automatic employee purchase plans, where many officers buy a few shares at once.
- When a filing's price per share is clearly wrong, for example the total proceeds typed into the price box, we withhold the dollar value and mark the trade check price. We test prices against the latest SEC fails-to-deliver price for the stock.
Returns after purchases
- For each open-market purchase we compare the price the insider paid with the stock's price about 1, 3 and 6 months later.
- Later prices come from the SEC's fails-to-deliver files, which list a recent closing price for thousands of securities twice a month. We use the closest weekly price within a week of each date. Thinly traded stocks often have no price and are left out.
- These prices are not adjusted for splits or dividends. When the price series jumps by a split-like ratio during the holding period, we leave that purchase out rather than show a wrong number.
- An insider's track record is the average and median of these changes across their measured purchases. Past results do not predict future ones.
Fund holdings (13F)
- We follow 26 funds. For each we read the two most recent original 13F-HR filings.
- Rows are combined by CUSIP. Put and call options are counted separately and excluded from holdings tables.
- A position is new if it was absent last quarter, added or trimmed if the share count rose or fell, and sold out if it disappeared.
- CUSIPs are matched to tickers using the SEC's fails-to-deliver data. Securities we cannot match are shown by name without a link.
- Amended 13F filings, including positions first kept confidential, are not yet merged in.
Timing
Insiders have two business days to file a Form 4, and managers have 45 days after quarter end to file a 13F. Our pages show the filing date and the trade or quarter-end date separately.
Our Form 4 records currently run from Aug 13, 2026 to Oct 27, 2026. Sentences such as "the first purchase by this insider in two years" appear only when our records cover the full two years before the trade.
Errors
Filings sometimes contain mistakes, and so can our processing. When we find or are told about an error, we fix it and log it on our corrections page. Please write to corrections@wallstpal.com.