Does following insiders actually work?
We took every open-market insider purchase on file, marked the price on the day the filing went public — the moment an alert would fire — and measured what the stock did next. Then we did the same for the S&P 500 over the identical dates, so you can see the edge beyond a rising market.
Up one month later
57%
Share of insider buys trading above the filing-day price after ~21 trading days
Beat the S&P 500
50%
Share that outperformed the index over the same one-month window
Average excess return
+3.0%
Mean one-month return above the S&P 500, per signal
By size of the buy
Bigger checks tend to carry more conviction. Win rate = % of signals above the filing-day price; Beat S&P = % that also outran the index.
| Buy size | Signals | Up @1D | Up @1W | Up @1M | Beat S&P @1M | Avg excess @1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10K-50K | 4,425 | 61% | 58% | 55% | 48% | +2.4% |
| $50K-250K | 4,110 | 67% | 63% | 58% | 50% | +2.2% |
| $250K-1M | 1,832 | 71% | 66% | 60% | 54% | +4.7% |
| $1M+ | 1,467 | 69% | 66% | 56% | 50% | +5.0% |
| All buys | 11,834 | 65% | 62% | 57% | 50% | +3.0% |
Biggest gainers in the past 12 months
Insider buys with the largest 1-month gain in the past 12 months — sorted by absolute return.
| Ticker | Filed | Buy value | Size | +1W | +1M gain | vs S&P @1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZIVO | 2026-04-24 | $200.0K | $50K-250K | +216.7% | +233.3% | +228.2% |
| AEI | 2025-08-19 | $42.6K | $10K-50K | +22.9% | +192.4% | +188.9% |
| HYMC | 2025-12-11 | $5.70M | $1M+ | +24.3% | +173.8% | +172.8% |
| GLSI | 2025-11-28 | $38.5K | $10K-50K | +2.4% | +151.1% | +150.3% |
| CJMB | 2025-12-15 | $18.4K | $10K-50K | -18.1% | +145.6% | +143.6% |
| BLNE | 2025-09-03 | $15.9K | $10K-50K | +32.9% | +142.2% | +138.0% |
| BW | 2025-08-19 | $30.2K | $10K-50K | +17.1% | +141.1% | +137.6% |
| BKKT | 2025-08-25 | $1.47M | $1M+ | +9.8% | +138.7% | +135.5% |
| STTK | 2025-09-02 | $10.97M | $1M+ | +99.0% | +135.6% | +131.0% |
| BLNK | 2025-09-08 | $21.6K | $10K-50K | +23.6% | +115.5% | +112.0% |
| AARD | 2025-09-10 | $48.4K | $10K-50K | +37.1% | +107.4% | +104.2% |
| ALMS | 2025-12-04 | $2.04M | $1M+ | +39.9% | +95.5% | +94.2% |
| NRGV | 2025-09-16 | $55.3K | $50K-250K | +40.7% | +94.7% | +93.6% |
| SEI | 2025-09-09 | $298.3K | $250K-1M | +29.6% | +94.2% | +90.4% |
| OPEN | 2025-08-28 | $121.3K | $50K-250K | +55.7% | +92.0% | +89.5% |
How we measured this
- Signals: open-market purchases only (Form 4 code
P, shares acquired) — grants, option exercises, and gifts are excluded. Minimum trade value $10K. - Entry: the adjusted closing price on the first trading day on or after the filing became public — i.e. the price you could realistically act on when an alert fires, not the insider's (earlier, non-public) trade date.
- Windows: +1, +5 (≈1 week), and +21 (≈1 month) trading days, using split/dividend-adjusted closes throughout.
- Benchmark: the S&P 500 (SPY) measured over the exact same dates; “excess” is the stock's return minus the index's.
- Coverage: based on 11,834 signals across 2,039 tickers, 2025-01-02 to 2026-05-08. Signals on tickers without price coverage (e.g. since-delisted names) are excluded, which can introduce survivorship bias.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. This is research, not investment advice.
