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Quarterly Intelligence Report

The 13F Playbook

Every quarter, 8,000+ institutional investors disclose their equity holdings to the SEC. The Playbook distills those filings into the signals that matter: who is actually buying, where conviction is building and which patterns have persisted across multiple quarters.

50+
Quarters of Data
8,000+
Institutional Filers
70
Page Playbook
SEC
Primary Source

Institutional positioning is public data.
Understanding it is the edge.

Every quarter, institutional investors managing over $100M disclose their long equity holdings to the SEC. The Playbook transforms these filings into structured intelligence you can act on.

Separate Flows from Price Effects

When a stock's reported value rises, is that because institutions bought more shares or because the price went up? The Playbook decomposes every value change into actual equity capital flow and price effect, so you know who acted and who just held.

Prioritize Your Research

Focus on names where institutional activity aligns with your thesis. Proprietary composite signals distinguish sustained conviction from one-quarter noise, so you spend research time on the names that matter.

Understand Consensus Before Going Contrarian

Know where broad capital is positioned before taking the other side. Style clusters reveal which institutional investors hold similar portfolios, highlighting crowding risk and correlated exit pressure.

Identify Crowding and Reversal Risk

Dedicated signals flag securities where institutional flow direction flipped and where price effects masked the actual direction of capital. These markers highlight positions that may be vulnerable to unwinding.

8,000+ filings. One structured playbook.

Free 13F tools show you holdings tables. The Playbook shows you what those holdings mean - who is actually buying, who is coasting on price gains and which patterns have persisted for multiple quarters.

Thousands of Filings, One Afternoon

Each quarter, 8,000+ institutional investors file with the SEC. Reading them individually is impossible. The Playbook distills 2M+ positions into ranked tables, scored signals and narrative insights you can read in one sitting.

Flows, Not Just Holdings

Most 13F analysis shows you what investors hold. The Playbook tells you what they did. A stock can gain $20B in reported value while institutions are net selling. We decompose every change so you see the real direction of capital, not just headline numbers.

Multi-Quarter Pattern Detection

One quarter of buying means little. Three consecutive quarters with broad participation is a signal. The Playbook tracks persistence, reversals and divergence across 50+ quarters of history, surfacing patterns that single-snapshot tools miss entirely.

Composite Signals, Not Raw Numbers

Raw buyer counts and dollar changes tell an incomplete story. The Playbook uses proprietary composite scoring that combines multiple dimensions of institutional activity into single, interpretable signals. Each metric is designed to answer a specific investment question.

Professional Quality, Not a Data Dump

A 70-page boardroom-grade PDF with narrative analysis, annotated figures, detailed methodology and a full disclaimer. Designed for investors who need to explain positioning to stakeholders, not just screen for tickers.

Forward-Looking, Not Just Backward

Every playbook ends with falsifiable watch items for the next quarter. Each has a measurable trigger and an explicit negation condition. When next quarter's data arrives, you can objectively test whether the signal held or broke.

70 pages of structured intelligence

Each section builds on the last, moving from macro positioning to security-level signals to forward-looking watch items.

  • 1

    Executive Summary

    Three flow maps (sectors, accumulation, distribution) and a synthesized wisdom statement framing the quarter's dominant patterns.

  • 2

    Institutional Investor Optimism Index

    A proprietary composite 0-100 positioning score derived from multiple action-based components of institutional behavior. Measures what investors chose to do, not what the market did.

  • 3

    Net Buying and Net Selling

    Top securities ranked by Estimated Net Equity Flow, with detailed tables showing flow intensity, breadth, persistence, reversals and divergence flags.

  • 4

    Sector Equity Exposure Changes

    Sector-level reallocation patterns showing where institutional investors shifted equity exposure, with persistence scores and participation breadth.

  • 5

    Smart Money Themes

    Emerging investment themes anchored in data, with explicit metrics and limitation acknowledgments. Each theme tied to flow intensity, breadth and persistence.

  • 6

    Investment Ideas from Equity Capital Flows

    Signal-driven accumulation and distribution candidates filtered by composite flow metrics. Includes strictest-signal markers and divergence flags.

  • 7

    High Conviction Stocks

    Largest single-manager positions measured by a proprietary Conviction Score. Shows where individual institutional investors made their most concentrated equity bets.

  • 8

    Style Clusters and What to Watch

    Network visualization grouping institutional investors by holdings similarity. Forward-looking watch items with measurable triggers and explicit negation criteria.

Sample: Net Buying Signals

Accumulation Signals
Security Flow Intensity Net Buyers Persistence
NVDA 87.3 +1,234 3Q
MSFT 74.1 +891 2Q
AMZN 68.5 +756 3Q
META 61.2 +542 1Q
GOOGL 58.9 +498 2Q
Equity Flow Intensity: proprietary composite 0-100 signal measuring the strength and breadth of institutional equity buying or selling pressure. Illustrative data.

Beyond simple percentage changes

The Playbook combines multiple dimensions of institutional activity into composite signals that distinguish sustained conviction from noise.

0-100
Equity Flow Intensity
Proprietary composite signal that captures the strength of institutional buying or selling pressure across multiple dimensions. Higher scores reflect stronger, more broadly supported flows.
0-100
Optimism Index (IIOI)
Aggregate positioning indicator built from multiple action-based components. Measures what institutional investors chose to do with their portfolios, independent of price movements.
0-100
Conviction Score
Measures how concentrated an institutional investor's equity bet is in a single security. Distinguishes large current positions from active accumulation - an investor can have high conviction while reducing exposure.
R
Reversal Detection
Flags securities where the direction of institutional equity flows flipped from the prior quarter. A signal that conviction is shifting and prior trends may not hold.
Divergence Flag
Marks securities where the headline value change tells a different story than the underlying capital movement. Helps you see past price-driven noise to the actual institutional activity.
4Q
Flow Persistence
Tracks how many consecutive quarters institutional flows have pointed in the same direction for a given security. Separates sustained conviction from one-quarter repositioning.

SEC Form 13F filings,
rigorously processed

Every quarter, institutional investors managing $100M+ disclose long equity holdings to the SEC. We consolidate filings across release windows, adjust for stock splits and decompose value changes into flow and price components.

Publicly available, independently verifiable
  • Source: SEC EDGAR Form 13F filings, consolidated across quarterly release windows to capture late submissions and amendments.
  • Split-adjusted: Share counts adjusted for corporate actions using historical splits data, ensuring equity flow calculations reflect actual buying and selling.
  • 50+ quarters: Historical depth from Q1 2013 to present, enabling trend analysis, persistence scoring and multi-quarter pattern detection.
  • Price decomposition: Daily adjusted close prices enable separating equity capital flows from mark-to-market price effects for every security.
  • Security identification: Multi-step identifier cascade (CUSIP, FIGI, ISIN) via Bloomberg OpenFIGI for ticker resolution and GICS sector classification.

Analysis Pipeline

Ingest - SEC 13F filings across release windows
Enrich - Ticker mapping, GICS sectors, price data
Calculate - Split-adjusted flows, persistence, breadth
Decompose - Equity Flow vs Price Effect separation
Synthesize - Composite signals, themes, watch items
Deliver - 70-page PDF playbook with methodology

Intelligence for your own process

The Playbook provides research inputs, not recommendations. Institutional flows reflect constraints (benchmarks, liquidity, mandates) that are worth understanding whether you follow them or fade them.

Sophisticated Individual Investors

  • Prioritize research on names with institutional flow support
  • Understand consensus positioning before taking contrarian views
  • Spot crowding risk and reversal signals early
  • Validate your thesis against what large allocators actually did

Registered Investment Advisors

  • Explain portfolio positioning relative to institutional flows
  • Support client conversations with data-driven context
  • Identify sector reallocations and emerging themes
  • Monitor high-conviction names and style clusters

Investment Professionals

  • Decompose headline value changes into actual capital flows
  • Track multi-quarter persistence of institutional positioning
  • Map peer positioning through holdings-based style clusters
  • Falsifiable forward-looking watch items with explicit triggers

The 13F Playbook reports institutional activity from SEC filings. It does not constitute investment advice. 13F data reflects historical long equity positions disclosed with up to a 45-day delay, excluding short positions, derivatives and non-U.S. securities. Readers use this data to inform their own process.

Stop guessing what institutional
investors are doing.

70 pages of equity flow decomposition, conviction scoring, style clustering and falsifiable watch items. Built from 8,000+ SEC filings. Delivered quarterly.