Frequently Asked Questions

Trading on material non-public information is illegal. But insiders are allowed to buy and sell their own company's stock — they just have to disclose every trade publicly on SEC Form 4 within two business days. InsideStox only analyzes those legal, publicly disclosed trades. We're reading the same public record anyone can read; we're just reading all of it, every day.

The SEC filing that officers, directors, and 10%+ owners must submit whenever they trade their company's shares. It lists who traded, their role, the date, the number of shares, the price, and a transaction code. Code "P" means an open-market purchase — the only code we treat as a buy signal.

Insiders sell for many reasons that have nothing to do with the company's prospects — taxes, diversification, buying a house. They spend their own cash on the open market for essentially one reason: they think the stock is going up. Academic research consistently finds that opportunistic insider buys predict abnormal returns while sales predict almost nothing.

The scanner runs every day except Sunday (no filings post over the weekend). Each run pulls the freshest Form 4 batch from SEC EDGAR, scores new anomalies, refreshes every active signal's price and chart, and republishes the site. The "Last updated" stamp in the signal feed header shows the most recent run.

It's our anomaly score — how unusual and how significant the buy is, based on purchase size, whether the insider has ever bought before, how many insiders bought together, and whether the stock already moved. 70+ is a strong signal, 50–69 notable, under 50 watch-list. The full point breakdown is on the methodology page.

Multiple insiders at the same company buying within the same window. One executive buying could be idiosyncratic; three insiders reaching the same conclusion with their own money at the same time is much harder to dismiss — especially when it includes officers like the CFO who see the numbers first.

Signals move to the Archive tab after 30 days, with their price and return-since-flag frozen at archive time. Archived signals are retained for 90 days from first flag, then removed — a three-month-old result no longer says much about today's market. The scoreboard always reflects the rolling 90-day record, losers included.

No. InsideStox is a research tool — a filtered, scored starting point for your own due diligence. Insider buying improves the odds; it guarantees nothing. Some flagged stocks will fall. Read each signal's caveats, check the SEC filings we link, and make your own decisions. See our disclaimer.

While we build the public track record, new members get full access to every live signal free through September 1, 2026 — no credit card, no auto-billing, nothing to cancel. You just create an account so you can log in. When the offer ends your account reverts to the free archive view, and you can subscribe if you want to keep live access. Claim free access →

The archive and scoreboard are free to browse for everyone — every signal older than 30 days, in full. Active live signals require a membership: $9.99/month or $99/year. As a guest you still see each live signal's score, buy size, and return — only the company, ticker, and insider names are masked. See plans →

Filings come directly from SEC EDGAR, the U.S. government's official filing system. Price data comes from public market data feeds. Every signal links to its source filings so you can verify everything yourself.