---
title: "Form 4 by the Numbers: What 221,347 Insider Filings Reveal"
description: "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."
canonical: https://insideralpha.ai/learn/form-4-by-the-numbers
date_published: 2026-08-03
date_updated: 2026-09-23
publisher: InsiderAlpha (https://insideralpha.ai)
---

Canonical URL: https://insideralpha.ai/learn/form-4-by-the-numbers
Published 2026-08-03. Updated 2026-09-23.

# Form 4 by the numbers: what 221,347 insider filings reveal

InsiderAlpha stores the SEC Form 4 filings posted to EDGAR. This study covers the deduplicated corpus as it stood on August 3, 2026: **221,347 primary Form 4 filings** by **53,567 insiders** across **6,114 companies**, from December 2022 to that date. The live corpus is larger and grows every trading day; these figures are frozen so every percentage below stays computed on the same rows. Every number below is computed directly from those filings; the methodology, including every data-quality filter we applied, is at the end.

[Download the published aggregate CSV and filing-lag chart](https://insideralpha.ai/learn/form-4-by-the-numbers#study-downloads). The download records each figure's unit, scope and exclusions. It is a reusable copy of this frozen study, not a current count of filings.

## How fast do insiders really file?

Section 16 gives insiders [two business days](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-17/chapter-II/part-240/section-240.16a-3) to report a trade. In practice, the median Form 4 arrives **2 calendar days** after the earliest transaction it reports, and 90.5% arrive within 4 calendar days (our data records calendar days, so these figures bracket the business-day rule rather than measuring it exactly).

The tail is long: **3.15% of Form 4s arrive more than 10 days after the trade**, about 1 in 30, and 1.55% arrive more than 45 calendar days after the earliest transaction. The 99th percentile filing lag is **96 days**. A late filing still goes on the record, but a purchase disclosed three months after the trade describes a much older price than one disclosed after two days. Check both dates when reading [insider buying signals](https://insideralpha.ai/learn/insider-buying-signals).

## Insiders sold $4.32 for every $1 they bought in 2026

Across 2026 filings through August 3, 2026, insiders reported roughly **$21.5 billion of open-market purchases** against **$93.0 billion of sales** - $4.32 sold for every $1 bought, and 4.6 sale transactions for every purchase (50,755 vs 11,022). Much of that gap comes from how insiders are paid: they receive stock and sell some of it, for taxes and to diversify. That is one reason [a sale is weak evidence](https://insideralpha.ai/learn/insider-selling-signal-or-noise) on its own, while a purchase is a decision to put more of the insider's own money into the company.

## Who does the buying: owners and directors, not the C-suite

By dollar value of 2026 purchases, **10% owners account for about 41%** and **directors about 40%**, while officers (CEOs, CFOs and the rest of the C-suite) account for only about 13% (roles can overlap, so these do not sum to exactly 100%). CEO purchases get the headlines, but by dollar value most 2026 buying came from [large owners](https://insideralpha.ai/learn/what-is-a-10-percent-owner) and board members.

## How often purchases carry the Rule 10b5-1 plan flag

Only **4.02% of 2026 purchase transactions** were marked as executed under a pre-scheduled [Rule 10b5-1 trading plan](https://insideralpha.ai/learn/rule-10b5-1). The flag records a specific disclosure; its absence does not establish why the insider bought or when they made the decision. Check the original filing and footnotes before describing a purchase as discretionary.

## One in three active companies sees cluster buying

Of the 1,890 companies with any insider purchase in 2026, **31% had at least two different insiders buy within a day of each other** at least once. The count uses distinct reporting people, and two reporting people are not always two independent buyers: the [cluster buying guide](https://insideralpha.ai/learn/cluster-buying) explains how to tell them apart before treating a pair as a cluster.

## When filings reach EDGAR

Most Form 4s arrive during business hours, with a rush after the close: **Tuesday is the busiest filing day** (23.0% of 2026 filings), Monday the lightest weekday (15.9%), and weekends are nearly silent (1.7% on Saturday, zero on Sunday). Within the day, filings spike in the two hours right after the US market close - timestamps in our feed are consistent with a 4pm-6pm Eastern peak. If you check filings once a day, check after the close. In this snapshot, the median filing reached our database 14 minutes after the SEC feed timestamp.

## Methodology and data notes

- **Corpus:** 221,347 primary Form 4 filings (December 2022 to August 3, 2026), deduplicated so amendments and duplicate submissions are counted once. Source: [SEC Form 4](https://www.sec.gov/about/forms/form4.pdf) filings on EDGAR.
- **Filing lag** is filing date minus the earliest transaction date on the filing, in calendar days; negative lags and lags over 10 years (52 filings) were excluded as data errors.
- **Dollar totals** exclude individual transactions above $1 billion to remove a small number of parse-error rows in source filings; this filter removes under 0.3% of transactions. Ratios are therefore conservative estimates.
- **Role percentages** can overlap (an insider can be both a director and a 10% owner) and are sensitive to the outlier filter; figures shown use the $1B filter.
- **Hour-of-day** timezone is inferred from feed timestamps, not stored explicitly.

Journalists and researchers: you are welcome to cite these figures with attribution to **InsiderAlpha (insideralpha.ai)** and a link to this page. For custom cuts of the data, [contact us](https://insideralpha.ai/contact).

[Browse the Form 4 feed →](https://insideralpha.ai/filings) · [Recent insider purchases →](https://insideralpha.ai/insiders/recent-buys)

*This article is informational and is not investment advice.*