The WallStPal Signal Log: Every Pick, Kept on the Record
Starting this week, we record the highest-scoring insider purchases every Monday and track them in public. Nothing is ever removed.
By Sepehr Parsa · Founder and editor, WallStPalWhy keep a public log
Anyone can show a list of past winners. The honest test of a signal is to write it down before the result is known and then report what happened, including the misses. That is what this page does. Every Monday our pipeline takes the purchases filed the week before that scored 70 or more on the WallStPal Score (at most ten, one per company) and adds them to the log. The log file is committed to our data history each day, so entries cannot quietly change later.
Results are measured from the first weekly price after the signal was logged, the earliest point a reader could act on it, to the latest weekly price, minus the S&P 500 over the same weeks. This is a record of a rule, not investment advice.
The first week will be logged on the next Monday update.
For context: the same rule, looking back
Before the log existed, how did purchases with the same scores do? This is a look back over our records, not logged picks, so treat it with more suspicion: it is easy for any rule to look good on past data.
| Purchases | Measured | Median move | Median vs S&P 500 | Beat the index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Score 70 or more | 32 | −3.0% | −12.1% | 34% |
| Score 50 to 69 | 477 | +3.4% | −4.8% | 44% |
| Score under 50 | 3,202 | +2.6% | −2.8% | 42% |
Three months after each purchase. The score weighs the buyer's role, the size of the purchase against their holding, other insiders buying, a recent fall in the stock, and whether the trade was planned.
Examples
Public track records are rare in investing because they are uncomfortable. In 1988 The Wall Street Journal began its "Dartboard" contest, pitting professional stock pickers against stocks chosen by throwing darts, and published the results for more than a decade. The professionals won more often than not, but the darts won plenty, and the exercise showed readers how much luck there is in short-term results. This log is in the same spirit.
Explain it like I'm 13
Imagine writing your guess for every football match in a notebook before kick-off, in pen, and showing the notebook to everyone afterwards. You can't rip out the pages where you were wrong. That's this page, for our strongest insider-buying signals.
Built from SEC Form 4 and 13F filings and STOCK Act reports as read by WallStPal, rebuilt every day. Prices are weekly closing prices derived from SEC data and can lag by a few weeks. Results describe what stocks did, not anyone's profit, and are not investment advice. See our method.
About this page
WallStPal explains public SEC filings and congressional stock trade reports in plain English. Nothing is for sale; the site is free and supported by ads.
How to read it
- Form 4
- The form a company insider (officer, director or owner of more than 10%) must file with the SEC within two business days of buying or selling the company's shares.
- 13F
- A quarterly list of U.S. stocks held by an investment manager with more than $100 million, filed within 45 days after each quarter ends.
- STOCK Act
- A 2012 law that requires members of Congress to report stock trades by themselves, a spouse or a dependent child within 45 days.
A real example
In January 2016, when bank stocks were falling, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon bought 500,000 JPMorgan shares with his own money, worth about $26 million. His Form 4 made the purchase public within days, and investors read it as a strong sign of confidence.
Explain it like I'm 13
We read the long, boring forms that grown-ups file with the government and tell you what they say in normal words.
Data from public SEC filings and congressional reports. Information, not investment advice. Check every number against the filing linked on the page.