Methodology

How theSECfiles turns public SEC filings into dashboards and why some numbers are estimates rather than executions.

What are SEC filings?

Public companies and large investment managers must report certain activities to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These public filings include holdings reports, insider transactions and ownership disclosures.

What is Form 13F?

Form 13F-HR is filed quarterly by institutional investment managers reporting equity holdings above a threshold. It is a snapshot of reported long equity positions at quarter end. It does not contain short positions, intraday trades or every instrument.

What is Form 4?

Form 4 reports insider transactions: buys, sells, grants, option exercises and gifts. When the SEC filing contains share counts and prices, theSECfiles displays them as reported.

Why is performance only estimated?

13F filings show reported holdings at quarter end, not exact buy or sell prices. theSECfiles uses public price data to estimate position values and gains, but cannot reconstruct individual trades or commissions.

Why are options shown separately?

Public filings often lack contract-level data, expiry dates or strike prices in a consistently usable format. Calculating option returns from filings would be misleading. Options are shown in their own section behind a toggle.

Why is this not financial advice?

SEC data is delayed, sometimes incomplete and never a substitute for due diligence. theSECfiles is for research, education and entertainment.

How often is data updated?

Each entity is checked at most once per day. If a search hits a recently updated dashboard, it loads instantly. Fresh queries trigger a background fetch from SEC EDGAR.

How is data cached?

We cache SEC submissions and filings server-side and respect EDGAR fair-access guidance: declared user agent, low request rate and aggressive caching.