13F filings

Institutional investors managing more than $100 million in US-listed equities must report their holdings at the end of each quarter to the SEC on a form 13F. That is the source of every number on this page.

The filing is due 45 days after the quarter ends and most funds use close to all of it. The holdings shown are therefore a portfolio as it stood on the last day of the quarter, published up to six weeks later, reflecting decisions taken over the three months before that. A position listed here may already have been sold.

The lag is what makes 13F data better suited to studying how a manager invests than to deciding what to hold now.

Four filing dates a year, each 45 days after a quarter end. Filings cluster heavily in the final days before each deadline.

A position opened in early January can therefore be public in mid-May, more than four months later, and a position opened and closed inside a single quarter never appears at all.

Each fund is marked with its status for the most recently ended quarter. Filed means the 13F is in and the holdings are current to that quarter. Expected means it has not arrived and the 45-day deadline has not passed, which is the normal state for several weeks after each quarter end.

Outdated means the holdings shown are from an older quarter: a filing deadline has passed without a newer 13F. It covers funds that are late as well as funds that have wound down, reported no positions or dropped below the $100 million threshold, so it describes the holdings rather than the manager.

A 13F covers US-listed equities and similar instruments. It excludes cash, bonds, commodities, foreign listings, private holdings and short positions. A fund that has sold everything and moved to cash files a 13F showing almost nothing, and a fund positioned mainly in bonds or overseas markets appears far smaller here than it is.

The omission of short positions has the largest effect on interpretation. Only the long side is disclosed, so a holding that exists as one leg of a hedge is indistinguishable from a position taken on the company itself. A fund that is long a company and short its competitor appears simply to like the first.

Managers may also apply for confidential treatment of a position while they are building it, which delays disclosure further, and the form carries no commentary, cost basis or target.

The most widely held table is the closest thing here to a signal, since agreement across many independent managers is less easily explained by chance than any single position. It remains a starting point for research.

Changes carry more information than levels. A fund holding the same company for years says less than one opening a position it has never held, and both are visible in the quarter-on-quarter counts.

Position size matters alongside presence. A holding worth a fraction of a percent of a portfolio represents a different level of commitment from a concentrated one, regardless of the manager, and the largest positions are where a manager's view is actually expressed.

Treating a 13F as current. It describes a quarter that has ended and a filing that may be six weeks old.

Reading a small position as an endorsement. Many appear through index-tracking sleeves or rules-driven strategies rather than a decision about the company.

Assuming a fund that appears to hold only equities holds only equities. The form does not cover anything else.

Copying a well-known manager position by position, which reproduces the long side of a portfolio whose hedges, cash and non-US holdings are invisible here.