Free guides to SEC insider filings and what they can and cannot tell you, written from the Form 4 filings InsiderAlpha tracks. No sign-up needed.
Who files SEC Form 4, the two-business-day deadline, transaction codes, ownership tables and amendments, with the SEC source for each rule.
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A Form 4 packs an insider trade into a header, two tables, and footnotes. What every box means - relationship checkboxes, transaction codes, the (A)/(D) flag, direct vs indirect ownership - walked through on a real 2026 CEO purchase, with the EDGAR document open beside it.
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What SEC Form 4 codes P, S, A, F, M and the rarer ones mean, with examples that keep the code apart from the acquired/disposed and ownership columns.
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SEC Form 4 must be filed within two business days of an insider transaction. When the clock starts, what counts as a business day, the exceptions, and what happens when insiders file late.
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Form 3 declares an insider's starting holdings, Form 4 reports transactions within two business days, and Form 5 is the annual catch-up. What each form covers, its deadline, and what each one is useful for.
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Form 4 reports a completed trade; Form 144 gives notice of a proposed sale. A real EDGAR notice and a worksheet for matching the two without double counting.
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How to tell a Form 4 purchase from an award, conversion or tax withholding, using both tables, a real Apple RSU settlement and checks for double counting.
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An 8-K is the SEC filing companies must submit within four business days of a major event: CEO departures, M&A, earnings, bankruptcies, cyber incidents. What the common item codes mean and how to read an 8-K next to insider trades.
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Every 8-K event slots into a numbered item - 2.02 is earnings, 5.02 is executive changes, 4.02 is a restatement. The full item reference, which items are furnished vs filed, and how often each one appeared across 29,000+ filings.
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A checklist for reading an insider purchase on Form 4: the code, the security, ownership, price, plan disclosure, filing dates and company context.
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How to check an insider cluster buy: a worked counting example, date windows, shared-ownership checks, and the limits of plan flags and past research.
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What academic research found about insider purchases, which kinds of buys the studies separated out, and why a result measured across many trades is not a forecast for one stock.
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How to read an insider sale without guessing the motive: tell S, F and M rows apart, trace 10b5-1 evidence, size the sale and match Form 144 notices.
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How to read a CEO buying their own stock, with a real Conagra filing: ownership arithmetic, proxy and plan checks, and why Section 16(b) is not a lockup.
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How much of a company its insiders own, and whether that stake is growing, changes how you read every Form 4. Rough ranges by company size, the upside and downside of high ownership, and how to check it.
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We analyzed the SEC Form 4 filings in our corpus since December 2022: how fast insiders file, how much they sell for every dollar they buy, how often insiders buy in clusters, and when filings reach EDGAR.
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Who in Congress reports stock trades, the 30-day and 45-day deadlines, the $1,000 threshold, the value ranges, where reports are published, and what they omit.
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Every field on a House PTR, read on a real filing: owner and asset type codes, transaction types, the two dates, value ranges, amendments and paper scans.
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SEC Form 4 and a congressional PTR answer different questions: who files, how fast, how precisely, whose company. Side by side, and how InsiderAlpha shows both.
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The 30-day and 45-day rules behind a PTR, how the notification date moves the deadline, what a late filing costs, and how to read our late marker.
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How to read Rule 10b5-1 disclosures: cooling-off periods, adoption dates, footnotes, and why an unchecked Form 4 box does not prove the insider picked the date.
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Most companies bar insiders from trading in the weeks before earnings, but blackout windows are company policy, not SEC law. How trading windows work, the one blackout that is statutory, and why so many insider buys land right after earnings.
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Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act sets how corporate insiders report trades (Forms 3, 4, 5) and hand back short-swing profits. Who counts as a Section 16 insider and what each form is for.
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Section 16(b) makes corporate insiders hand back any profit from buying and selling their company's stock within six months, with no intent required. How matching works, the exemptions, and what it means for reading Form 4 data.
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A 10% owner beneficially owns more than 10% of a class of a company's registered equity, which makes them a Section 16 insider who files Form 4. What beneficial ownership covers and how these holders differ from officers and directors.
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Cross 5% of a public company and you must file a Schedule 13D (active intent) or 13G (passive stake). What each form discloses, the post-2024 filing deadlines, when a 13G must convert to a 13D, and how both relate to Form 4.
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Insiders legally buy and sell their own company's stock every day. It becomes a crime when the trade is based on material non-public information. Where the legal line sits, and why the legal trades are a public record anyone can read.
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UPS, Victoria's Secret, Coinbase, Sunbelt Rentals: which are public companies? How to check any company's listing status for free with SEC EDGAR and a ticker search, plus answers for the names people ask about most.
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Ticker symbols are the short codes stocks trade under, but IBRX, VLTO or FSCO tell you little on their own. How tickers are assigned, why they change after spin-offs and mergers, and how to look up an unfamiliar symbol.
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Who owns Alaska Air, Zions or KBR? Public companies are owned by their shareholders, so the useful question is which ones. Where to find insider stakes, institutional holders and parent-brand relationships in free SEC filings.
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What does Entegris make? What is FMC, Oklo or Veralto? How to answer "what does this company actually do" for any stock from its 10-K, where the official employee count lives, and what insider filings add.
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SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) filed a Form S-1 to go public under the ticker SPCX. What the registration filings covered, which terms an S-1 leaves open, and where to follow the company's filings and insider trades.
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