SEC EDGAR Form 4 Insider Trades Scraper

Scrapes SEC EDGAR Form 4 filings to extract structured insider trading data for any US-listed company. No API key required — uses only public SEC EDGAR endpoints.

What You Get

Each row in the output dataset represents one transaction from a Form 4 filing:

Field	Description
filing_date	Date the Form 4 was filed with the SEC
transaction_date	Actual date of the transaction
issuer_ticker	Stock ticker symbol
issuer_name	Company name
insider_name	Full name of the insider
insider_title	Role (CEO, CFO, Director, 10% Owner, etc.)
transaction_type	Human-readable type (Purchase, Sale, Award/Grant, Option Exercise, etc.)
direction	buy, sell, or other
transaction_code	SEC transaction code (P=Purchase, S=Sale, A=Award, M=Option Exercise...)
security_type	Security name (e.g. "Common Stock", "Restricted Stock Unit")
transaction_category	non-derivative (direct shares) or derivative (options, warrants)
shares_transacted	Number of shares in the transaction
price_per_share	Price per share in USD
total_value	Total transaction value (shares × price)
shares_owned_after	Total shares held after the transaction
ownership_type	Direct or Indirect
exercise_price	Option exercise price (derivatives only)
expiration_date	Option expiration date (derivatives only)
underlying_shares	Underlying shares for derivative (derivatives only)
accession_number	SEC EDGAR accession number
filing_url	Direct link to the filing on SEC.gov

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
ticker	string	—	Stock ticker (e.g. AAPL). Provide this or cik.
cik	string	—	SEC CIK number. Alternative to ticker.
daysBack	integer	90	How far back to search (days). Max 3650.
maxFilings	integer	40	Max Form 4 filings to process. Max 200.
includeDerivatives	boolean	true	Include options/warrants transactions.
userAgent	string	—	Custom User-Agent for SEC requests (include your email).

Example Input

{
  "ticker": "AAPL",
  "daysBack": 180,
  "maxFilings": 50,
  "includeDerivatives": false
}

Example Output

{
  "filing_date": "2024-11-05",
  "transaction_date": "2024-11-04",
  "issuer_ticker": "AAPL",
  "issuer_name": "Apple Inc.",
  "insider_name": "COOK TIMOTHY D",
  "insider_title": "Chief Executive Officer",
  "transaction_type": "Sale",
  "direction": "sell",
  "transaction_code": "S",
  "security_type": "Common Stock",
  "transaction_category": "non-derivative",
  "shares_transacted": 230000,
  "price_per_share": 222.91,
  "total_value": 51269300.0,
  "shares_owned_after": 3280345,
  "ownership_type": "Direct",
  "exercise_price": null,
  "expiration_date": null,
  "underlying_shares": null,
  "accession_number": "0000320193-24-000123",
  "filing_url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032019324000123/0000320193-24-000123-index.htm"
}

How It Works

1. Resolves the ticker to a SEC CIK number using the EDGAR company tickers registry
2. Fetches Form 4 filing metadata from data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK{cik}.json
3. Downloads each Form 4 XML document from the EDGAR archives
4. Parses the XML to extract all transaction records
5. Pushes structured records to the Apify dataset

SEC EDGAR Rate Limits

SEC allows a maximum of 10 requests per second. This actor throttles to ~8 req/s. If you run many actors in parallel against the same IP, consider adding delay. SEC may block IPs that exceed their limits.

The userAgent parameter should include your contact email so SEC can reach you if needed — this is their stated policy.

Data Source

All data comes directly from the SEC EDGAR public database:

• https://data.sec.gov/submissions/ — filing metadata
• https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ — filing documents

No third-party data providers. Data is as accurate as what insiders report to the SEC.

Use Cases

• Monitor insider buying/selling for investment research
• Build insider trading alerts and signals
• Aggregate insider activity for screening
• Track specific executives across companies
• Academic research on insider trading patterns