How InsiderWire builds a signal.
Two things make a result on the wire: the data we pull, and the rules we run on it. This page is the documentation of both — the four data sources, the consensus scoring formula, and the AAOIFI-aligned halal screen. If our reading of a rule looks wrong to you, write to support@insiderwire.us — we read every note.
Four data streams,
one wire.
Every signal on InsiderWire traces back to a publicly-filed record at one of four government or social sources. Below is the full list with refresh cadence.
SEC Form 4 — insider transactions
Officers, directors, and 10%+ owners of US-listed companies must file Form 4 within two business days of any transaction in their own company's stock. We pull these via OpenInsider's EDGAR mirror every 5 minutes. Only open-market purchases (transaction code P) and sales (code S) are treated as directional signals — option exercises, grants, and tax withholdings are noise. See Form 4 explained.
13F filings — institutional holdings
Investment managers with $100M+ in US equity AUM must disclose long positions quarterly, 45 days after quarter-end. We aggregate ~70 value-investor 13Fs via Dataroma (Berkshire, Bridgewater, Pershing Square, Pabrai, and similar). New positions and additions become signals tagged source="13f". See 13F explained.
Congressional trades — STOCK Act disclosures
Members of Congress and their spouses must file Periodic Transaction Reports within 45 days of trading. We pull the House Clerk PTR feed and the Senate eFD eFiles daily. Each disclosed Buy becomes a signal tagged source="congress" with member name, chamber, ticker, and dollar band. See STOCK Act explained.
Stocktwits trending — social attention
Trending tickers from Stocktwits' public API every 5 min, tagged source="news". This is the noisiest source and carries the lowest weight, but it's useful as a "second signal" — when a ticker that's already lit up on Form 4 or 13F also surges in social attention, the consensus score jumps.
Source quality × volume curve × recency
+ cross-source bonus.
The single number that ranks every ticker on the wire. The formula is tunable from config.ts; defaults below.
The formula
For each source S that fired ≥1 signal on a ticker in the window:
per_source_contribution =
sourceWeight[S] // 1.0, 0.85, etc.
× log2(N_signals + 1) // diminishing returns
× mean(recency(s) for s in S's signals)
recency(s) = 0.5 ^ (age_days / halfLife)
score = sum(per_source_contribution) + crossSourceBonus[distinct_sources]Default knob values
Source weights: sec_form4 1.0, 13f 1.0, congress 0.85, news 1.0. Recency half-life: 7 days (signal today = 1.0, 7 days old = 0.5, 14 days = 0.25). Same-source curve: log2(N+1) — diminishing past ~5 signals to prevent spam-ticker inflation. Cross-source bonus: +0.5 for 2 sources, +1.0 for 3, +1.5 for 4.
Worked example
NVDA over the last 7 days: 2 Form 4 buys (today, 3 days ago), 1 Congressional trade (today), 3 news mentions (1, 2, 5 days ago).
sec_form4: 1.0 × log2(3) × mean(1.0, 0.74) = 1.37 congress: 0.85 × log2(2) × 1.0 = 0.85 news: 1.0 × log2(4) × mean(0.91, 0.82, 0.61) = 1.56 base = 1.37 + 0.85 + 1.56 = 3.78 3 distinct sources → +1.0 bonus final score = 4.78
Compare to a naive sum-of-source-weights (2.85 on the same ticker). The new formula rewards depth within each source and breadth across sources in one comparable number. See Consensus score explained.
AAOIFI sector exclusions
+ three financial ratios.
Every ticker page renders a verdict (halal / doubtful / haram / unknown) with the specific rule codes that triggered. The screen is AAOIFI-aligned but reviewable per-ticker by admin.
Sector exclusions
A ticker fails the screen if its primary revenue (≥5%) comes from: alcohol, gambling, conventional financial services (banks, insurers issuing interest-bearing products), weapons / defense, tobacco, adult entertainment, pork products, or conventional bond issuance.
Financial ratios
Debt ratio: total interest-bearing debt / market cap must be < 33%.
Interest income: non-permissible interest income / total revenue must be < 5%.
Cash + receivables: (cash + interest-bearing securities + accounts receivable) / market cap must be < 33%.
Verdicts
Halal — passes sector exclusions and all three ratios. Doubtful — fails one ratio marginally. Permissible with caution and purification calculation. Haram — fails sector exclusion or fails two+ ratios. Unknown — not yet reviewed by admin (default state for untagged tickers).
Reason codes
When admin records a verdict, each criterion can be flagged independently: revenue check, debt within limit, interest income OK, cash ratio OK. The banner on each ticker page renders chips for whichever criteria are explicit (✓ passed, ✗ failed). This is the transparency layer — if our reading of a rule looks wrong to you, the chips show exactly which one we tripped. See AAOIFI halal screen explained.
Limits of the screen.
This is not investment advice. InsiderWire aggregates publicly-available filings; we don't recommend specific trades. Past activity from insiders, funds, or politicians is not a guarantee of future stock-price performance.
The halal screen is best-effort, based on public filings, and admin-curated. AAOIFI is one of several Islamic-finance standards (Dow Jones Islamic, MSCI Islamic, S&P Shariah use slightly different thresholds); a verdict on InsiderWire may not match every scholar's reading. Consult a qualified Islamic-finance scholar or licensed financial advisor before acting on a verdict.
521 of our ~580 tracked tickers are currently in the "unknown" verdict state pending admin review. Coverage improves continuously; in 2026 we plan to integrate a third-party halal API (Zoya / Musaffa) as a baseline with admin overlay verification.
Methodology last updated 2026-05-16. Substantive changes are recorded here with the date; minor copy edits are not.