Insider Trading API — SEC Form 4 Buys & Sells

See what CEOs, CFOs, directors and 10% owners are buying and selling in their own companies — minutes after they file with the SEC.

This Actor pulls SEC Form 4 insider-trading filings straight from EDGAR and turns the raw XML into clean, one-row-per-trade data: dollar value, insider name and role, shares owned afterwards, % change in their holding, and whether the trade was pre-scheduled under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. No API key, no third-party websites, no browser — just official SEC data.

Part of the SmartMoney Data suite: Insider Trades · Hedge Fund 13F Holdings · Congress Stock Trades · Form 144 Planned Sales

Why insider trades?

Insiders sell for many reasons — taxes, diversification, a new house. They buy for one: they think the stock is going up. Open-market insider purchases, especially by CEOs/CFOs and "cluster buys" by several insiders at once, are one of the most-studied signals in finance. This Actor gets you that signal as structured data.

What you can do with it

• 📈 Trading signals — alert on CEO open-market buys over $100k, or cluster buying across a watchlist.
• 🔬 Quant research — build and backtest insider-sentiment factors.
• 📰 Newsletters & fintech apps — power an "insider activity" feed or widget.
• 🧐 Due diligence — check insider behaviour before you invest or before earnings.
• 🤖 AI agents — answer "Has anyone at NVDA bought stock recently?" with a single tool call.

Features

• ✅ Watchlist mode — any US tickers, any lookback window
• ✅ Market-wide mode — the latest Form 4 filings across all companies (great on a 15-minute schedule)
• ✅ Dollar value of every trade (shares × price)
• ✅ Insider role — CEO, CFO, Director, 10% Owner…
• ✅ Holding change % — how much of their stake they bought or sold
• ✅ 10b5-1 plan flag — separates pre-scheduled sales from discretionary ones
• ✅ Direct vs indirect ownership (e.g. "By Family Trust") and trade footnotes
• ✅ Per-ticker summary — net $ bought vs sold and number of distinct insiders
• ✅ Filters for transaction type and minimum dollar value — you only pay for rows you keep
• ✅ Amended filings (4/A) included; link to the official SEC filing on every row

How to use it

Watchlist: last 30 days of buys and sells

{
  "tickers": ["AAPL", "NVDA", "TSLA"],
  "lookbackDays": 30,
  "transactionCodes": ["P", "S"]
}

Only meaningful insider purchases

{
  "tickers": ["AMD", "INTC", "MU", "QCOM"],
  "lookbackDays": 90,
  "transactionCodes": ["P"],
  "minValueUsd": 100000
}

Market-wide real-time feed (schedule every 15 minutes)

{ "latestFilingsCount": 50, "transactionCodes": ["P"] }

Transaction codes

Code	Meaning
P	Open-market purchase
S	Open-market sale
A	Grant / award
M	Option exercise / conversion
F	Shares withheld for taxes
G	Gift
D	Disposition to the issuer
X	In-the-money option exercise

Leave transactionCodes empty to get everything.

Output

Each row is one insider transaction. Example (illustrative values):

{
  "ticker": "AAPL",
  "issuerName": "Apple Inc.",
  "insiderName": "Doe Jane",
  "insiderRole": "Chief Financial Officer",
  "isOfficer": true,
  "transactionDate": "2026-09-18",
  "transactionCode": "S",
  "transactionType": "Open-market sale",
  "shares": 10000,
  "pricePerShare": 231.5,
  "valueUsd": 2315000,
  "sharesOwnedAfter": 90000,
  "holdingChangePct": -10,
  "is10b5_1Plan": true,
  "directOrIndirect": "Direct",
  "footnotes": ["The sale reported on this Form 4 was effected pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan…"],
  "filingDate": "2026-09-20",
  "filingUrl": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…-index.htm"
}

Download as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or fetch via API.

A SUMMARY record in the run's key-value store rolls results up per ticker:

{ "AAPL": { "buys": 1, "sells": 4, "buyValueUsd": 115000, "sellValueUsd": 9260000, "netValueUsd": -9145000, "distinctInsiders": 3 } }

Use it from code or an AI agent

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("smartmoney-data/sec-insider-trades-tracker").call(
    run_input={"tickers": ["NVDA"], "transactionCodes": ["P"], "lookbackDays": 90}
)
for trade in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(trade["insiderName"], trade["insiderRole"], trade["valueUsd"])

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('smartmoney-data/sec-insider-trades-tracker').call({ tickers: ['NVDA'] });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

AI agents: add this Actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server in Claude, Cursor or any MCP client.

No-code: schedule it and send results to Google Sheets, Slack, email, Zapier, Make or a webhook with Apify integrations.

Pricing

Pay per result — you're charged for each insider transaction returned, nothing for filings that don't match your filters. See the Pricing tab for current rates. Set a maximum cost per run and the Actor stops cleanly when it's reached.

FAQ

How fresh is the data? Insiders must file Form 4 within 2 business days of a trade. The Actor reads EDGAR directly, so filings appear as soon as the SEC publishes them.

What's a 10b5-1 plan and why does it matter? A pre-arranged trading plan adopted in advance. Sales under a plan are scheduled months earlier and usually say little about the insider's current view — the is10b5_1Plan flag lets you filter them out.

Does it cover non-US companies? It covers any company that files Form 4 with the SEC — essentially all US-listed issuers.

Why is pricePerShare empty on some rows? Grants, awards and gifts often have no price. Those rows have valueUsd: null.

Is this legal to use? Yes. Form 4 filings are public records published by the SEC for exactly this purpose. The Actor follows the SEC's fair-access rules (≤10 requests/second, identified User-Agent).

Related Actors

• 🏦 Hedge Fund 13F Holdings Tracker — what Berkshire, Pershing Square & co. bought and sold last quarter.
• 🏛️ Congress Stock Trades Tracker — stock trades by US Senators and Representatives.
• 🚨 Form 144 Planned Insider Sales — executives and directors who have filed to sell, before the sale happens.

Support

Found a bug or need a feature? Open an issue on the Issues tab or email smartmoney-data@googlegroups.com — we usually reply within a day.

Data is provided for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.