How to Track Insider Trades: Sources, Tools, and What to Watch For

Step 1: Know your sources

Insider trades are disclosed to regulators, not to a central database. In the US, the SEC maintains EDGAR - the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. Corporate insiders file Form 4 within two business days of a transaction. Congressional trades are filed under the STOCK Act within 45 days.

In Europe, each country has its own regulator and database. AMF for France. BaFin for Germany. AFM for the Netherlands. FSMA for Belgium. FCA for the UK. There is no pan-European equivalent of SEC EDGAR. Each source requires separate monitoring and parsing.

If you want to track insider activity comprehensively, you either need to monitor all these sources manually, or use a tool like Disclosyr that aggregates them for you.

Step 2: Focus on open-market purchases

Not all insider transactions are equally meaningful. The most informative signal is an open-market purchase - when an executive or director uses their own money to buy shares at market prices. This signals personal conviction about the company's prospects.

Less informative transactions include: option exercises (mandatory or compensation-related), inheritance transfers, gift transactions, and pre-planned selling programs (Rule 10b5-1 plans in the US). Disclosyr attempts to classify and label these separately so you are not misled by noise.

When tracking insider trades, filter specifically for open-market buys. A CFO buying €500,000 of their own company's stock is a qualitatively different signal from receiving €500,000 in option grants.

Step 3: Look for cluster buying

Individual insider trades can be driven by personal factors - a bonus, a divorce, a tax payment - unrelated to the company's outlook. Cluster buying, where multiple insiders at the same company buy within a short window, is considered a stronger signal.

A CEO, CFO, and two board members all buying within the same two-week period suggests aligned conviction. This is particularly powerful when it occurs after a period of no insider buying activity.

Disclosyr's feed surfaces cluster buying signals automatically, flagging events where multiple insiders transact in the same security within a short window.

Step 4: Check the insider's track record

Not all insiders have equal track records. Some executives are consistently well-timed buyers; others rarely get it right. Before acting on a signal, it is worth checking whether the insider in question has a history of well-timed purchases.

Disclosyr's leaderboard ranks insiders by their historical return since disclosure date - not the trade date. This is a conservative methodology: it measures performance from when you could have known about the trade, not from when the insider traded.

Step 5: Account for disclosure delay

One of the most important things to understand about insider trading data is disclosure lag. In the US, Form 4 must be filed within two business days. In Europe, MAR requires three business days. Congressional trades can be delayed up to 45 days.

This means that when you see a disclosure, the actual trade may have happened days, weeks, or even a month before. The market may have already moved. A trade that looks like a great buy signal was actually disclosed after a significant price increase.

Disclosyr always shows both the trade date and the disclosure date for every transaction, so you can see exactly how much of the price action preceded public knowledge of the trade.

What Disclosyr does for you

Disclosyr automates the full pipeline: ingesting from nine regulatory sources across six countries, normalising formats, identifying signal types, ranking insiders by track record, and presenting the data in a single searchable feed. Free users can explore the last 7 days of disclosures and the top 5 leaderboard. Pro subscribers get the full archive, full rankings, advanced filters, alerts, and signal explanations.