Methodology

The Insider Ledger tracks public SEC filings — insider transactions (Form 4), activist stakes (Schedule 13D), and quarterly institutional holdings (Form 13F) — for a fixed watchlist of influential investors, founders, and corporate capital allocators.

Every week an automated pipeline pulls new filings from SEC EDGAR, normalizes them into events, and computes signal metrics: insider buying clusters, position persistence across quarters, independent-investor consensus, activist involvement, and crowding. A composite score prioritizes what is worth attention; a written analysis explains what each action may reveal about the company or sector.

The scores follow a simple principle: open-market purchases with personal capital, repeated accumulation, and independent consensus are strong signals; option exercises, routine plan-based trades, and single small transactions are noise. Insider sales are treated as weakly informative because they often reflect taxes, diversification, or liquidity rather than a view on the business.

Known limitations: 13F filings appear up to 45 days after quarter end and exclude shorts, derivatives, and non-US positions; we cannot see an investor's hedges, cost basis, or private holdings. The output is a research queue, not a set of recommendations.