Questions people ask about public disclosures

Insider trading

Directors, officers and owners of more than 10 percent of a class of a company's registered stock report their holdings and trades to the SEC under Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act. A Form 3 gives the starting holdings, a Form 4 reports a transaction within two business days, and a Form 5 is a year-end catch-up. All of them are public on SEC EDGAR. Read the insider trading overview.

• Is it legal for a CEO to sell shares before bad news?

  Selling shares before bad news is not illegal in itself.

• How can you get free alerts for new SEC filings?

  The SEC turns some EDGAR searches into free RSS feeds.

• How do you find a company's insider trades on EDGAR?

  Open the SEC's Search Filings page, enter the company's name or ticker in Company Search, and set the Ownership Forms 3, 4 and 5 option to Only.

• How do you read an SEC Form 4 in five minutes?

  Read a Form 4 in four passes: who is filing and for which company, the code, date, shares and price in Table I, the footnotes, and the Rule 10b5-1 box.

• How do you read the tables on a Form 4?

  A Form 4 has two tables.

• What are SEC Forms 3, 4 and 5, and when are they due?

  Form 3 is the first report an insider files, within 10 days of becoming one, listing what they own.

• How do you read a Form 144?

  A Form 144 is the notice a holder of restricted or control shares files with the SEC when placing an order to sell them under Rule 144, once the sale passes 5,000 shares or $50,000 in three months.

• What does it mean when several insiders buy at once?

  Cluster buying is a market term for two or more insiders of the same company buying its stock on the open market within a short period; it is not a term in the SEC's rules.

• Is insider trading legal?

  Insider trading is two different things.

• Which insider purchases stood out in the week of Sep 28 to Oct 4, 2026?

  In the week of Sep 28 to Oct 4, 2026, insiders filed 318 open-market purchases worth about $442M, and ten stood out against their company's own filings since 2006.

• What is a Rule 10b5-1 plan?

  A Rule 10b5-1 plan is a written plan an insider adopts in advance that fixes how and when shares will be traded.

• What do the transaction codes on a Form 4 mean?

  On an SEC Form 4, P means a purchase and S means a sale, and most other letters mark events that are not trades in the market: A is a grant, M an option exercise, F shares withheld for tax, G a gift.

• What is the six-month short-swing profit rule?

  Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act says that any profit an officer, director or 10 percent owner makes from a purchase and sale, or sale and purchase, of the company's stock within a period of less than six months belongs to the company.

• When is a Form 4 late?

  A Form 4 is late if it is filed after the end of the second business day following the day of the trade; EDGAR treats a Form 4 submitted by 10 p.m.

• Who counts as an insider and has to file Form 4?

  Under Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act, the people who must report their company stock are directors, officers, and anyone who owns more than 10 percent of a class of the company's registered equity securities.

Congress trading

Under the STOCK Act of 2012, a covered transaction must be reported not later than 30 days after the person is notified of it and in no case later than 45 days after the transaction. The House form covers securities owned by a member, a spouse or dependent children above $1,000, and reports amounts as one of ten value categories, not as exact figures. Read the congress trading overview.

• Can members of Congress trade stocks?

  As of the sources read on 9 October 2026, yes: the STOCK Act of 2012, the law in force, does not ban members of Congress from owning or trading individual stocks.

• What do the dollar ranges on a Congress trade report mean?

  A periodic transaction report does not give an exact amount.

• Are a Congress member's spouse and child trades reported?

  Yes.

• Why do Congress stock trades take up to 45 days to appear?

  A periodic transaction report is due 30 days after the member is notified of a trade and in no case later than 45 days after the trade itself, so a disclosure can appear more than a month after the transaction.

• How do the House and Senate publish stock trade disclosures?

  House reports are filed with the Clerk of the House, electronically or on paper, and posted on the Clerk's website.

• How do you read a Congress periodic transaction report?

  A periodic transaction report (PTR) lists each stock purchase, sale, partial sale or exchange above $1,000 by a member of Congress, a spouse or a dependent child, with the asset name, two dates and one of ten amount bands.

Funds and 13F

Funds and other large holders disclose in three main ways. Managers with at least $100 million in listed equities file a Form 13F of their long positions within 45 days after each quarter. Anyone who owns more than 5 percent of a listed company files a Schedule 13D or 13G. Broker-dealers report short positions to FINRA, which publishes the short interest data. Read the funds and 13f overview.

• What is the difference between Schedule 13D and 13G?

  Anyone who beneficially owns more than 5 percent of a listed company's stock must file Schedule 13D or 13G.

• What does a Form 13F show?

  A Form 13F is a quarter-end snapshot of the long positions in SEC-listed securities held by an institutional investment manager with at least $100 million of them, filed within 45 days after the quarter.

• What does a Form 13F leave out?

  A Form 13F lists a manager's long positions in certain US-listed equity securities on the last day of a quarter.

• What is short interest, and where does FINRA publish it?

  Short interest is the total of short positions in a security that broker-dealers report to FINRA.

• How long after quarter end do funds file a 13F?

  Within 45 days.

Contracts and lobbying

The federal government publishes who it signs contracts with, on USAspending, and who lobbies it, under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, with a separate registry for agents of foreign principals under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. A contract record is a chain of actions, an obligation is not revenue, and a lobbying report says who lobbied on which issues, not what was said. Read the contracts and lobbying overview.

• What is the difference between a contract's ceiling and the amount obligated?

  The obligated amount is money the government has committed to a contract so far.

• What is FARA, and where can you search its filings?

  The Foreign Agents Registration Act, enacted in 1938, requires certain agents of foreign principals who engage in political or other specified activities to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal and of their activities, receipts and disbursements.

• What do modification numbers mean in a federal contract?

  A federal contract is recorded as a series of actions.

• How do you find which federal contracts a public company has?

  Federal contracts are published on USAspending.gov under the name of the recipient registered in SAM.gov, identified by a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), not by stock ticker.

• What are LD-1, LD-2 and LD-203 lobbying reports?

  Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, an LD-1 registers a lobbyist or lobbying firm within 45 days of first lobbying contact or hiring.

• How do you read a lobbying disclosure report (LD-2)?

  An LD-2 is the quarterly report in which a lobbying firm or an organization with in-house lobbyists states, for each client, the issues lobbied, the chambers and agencies contacted, the lobbyists used, and an estimate of income or expenses rounded to the nearest $10,000.

• How does USAspending identify who received a contract?

  A recipient on USAspending is the legal entity registered in the federal System for Award Management, identified by a Unique Entity ID.

Presidents and officials

The President's official actions, such as executive orders and proclamations, are published in the Federal Register. Financial interests of senior officials are reported on public forms under the Ethics in Government Act: OGE Form 278e for the annual report and OGE Form 278-T for securities transactions in the executive branch. Read the presidents and officials overview.

• What is a blind trust, and how does a qualified trust work?

  A qualified blind trust is a trust certified by the Director of the Office of Government Ethics, run by an independent trustee under a model trust document, so the official does not control or know what it buys and sells.

• What are executive orders and proclamations?

  Executive orders are numbered documents through which the President manages the operations of the federal government; proclamations are another kind of presidential document.

• What are OGE Form 278e and OGE Form 278-T?

  OGE Form 278e is the public financial disclosure report that senior executive-branch officials, nominees and presidential candidates file.

• Which officials must file financial disclosure reports?

  Title I of the Ethics in Government Act requires public financial disclosure reports from the President, the Vice President, Members of Congress, senior executive-branch officials, certain congressional employees, Senate-confirmed nominees and candidates for President, Vice President and Congress.

How to read a filing

Every public disclosure reports something that already happened, and the law gives the filer time to report it. Reading a filing well starts with two dates, the date of the event and the date of the filing, and with the terms the form uses. Read the how to read a filing overview.

• Where can you find insider trading and Congress trade data for free?

  Every dataset OQRO uses starts as a free public record: SEC EDGAR for insider trades, planned sales, fund holdings and 5% stakes; the House Clerk and Senate eFD sites for Congress trades; USAspending.gov for federal contracts; and the House and Senate lobbying databases.

• What are the key terms in public disclosure filings?

  These are 30 terms that appear in insider, Congress, fund, contract and lobbying filings, each defined in plain English from the official rule or form that uses it.

• Why are public disclosures always late?

  Because the law sets a deadline after the event, not before it.

About OQRO and other trackers

• How does OQRO compare with other disclosure trackers?

  SEC EDGAR is the free primary source for every filing, and the other products listed here package parts of it.

• How does OQRO compare with OpenInsider?

  OpenInsider is a screener for one form, SEC Form 4, with long date ranges and ready-made views of cluster buys and the largest purchases; OQRO adds Form 144, Congress trades, fund holdings and contracts, with a plain line and the official filing beside each record.

• How does OQRO compare with Quiver Quantitative?

  Quiver Quantitative lists a wider set of datasets and a free tier; OQRO covers fewer kinds of data, puts a plain-language line and a link to the official filing on every record, and reads SEC insider filings about every five minutes.

• How does OQRO compare with Unusual Whales?

  Unusual Whales is built around options flow, dark pool data and market tools, with a free plan; OQRO covers only filed disclosures (insider trades, Congress trades, fund holdings, contracts) and links each record to the official filing.

• How does OQRO compare with WhaleWisdom?

  WhaleWisdom is a 13F specialist with history back to 2001, a screener, a backtester and a free tier; OQRO follows a selected set of 13F filers and puts their moves next to insider trades, Congress trades and federal contracts, each with a plain line and the official filing.

• What is OQRO?

  OQRO is a subscription website and data service that collects what US-listed companies, large funds, members of Congress and federal agencies must disclose, and turns each filing into one plain line with a link to the official record.