How Do You Read a 13F Filing?

The short answer. Open the fund's most recent 13F, sort by value, and read the top ten — they are usually most of the book. Then compare against the previous quarter to see what was opened, added to, trimmed and sold. Ignore the long tail, ignore anything under about 0.5% of the book, and remember the whole document is up to 45 days old and shows only US-listed long positions.

How do you read a 13F filing?

1. Start with the concentration. What share of the book is the top ten? Above 70% is a conviction portfolio where the top names are the strategy. Below 30% is a diversified or quantitative book where no individual holding tells you much.
2. Read the changes, not the holdings. A position held unchanged for years is a decision made long ago. A brand new position is a decision made this quarter, which is the only fresh information in the document.
3. Separate opened from added. Opening a position is a judgement. Adding 3% to an existing one is often rebalancing.
4. Check the exits. What disappeared entirely is frequently more informative than what arrived, and almost every tracker under-reports it.
5. Look for the options line. Puts are bets against a company. A filing that shows a large long position and a large put position on the same name is telling you something a holdings list will not.

What does "new", "added" and "trimmed" mean?

They are comparisons between two consecutive filings by the same manager:

Note these are share-count comparisons, not value comparisons. A position can rise in value while the manager sells, and a tracker that compares dollar values instead of share counts will tell you they bought.

What are the traps?

• Value moves are not trades. If a holding is up 40% and the manager did nothing, the value rises 40%.
• A quarter is a long time. Bought and sold within the quarter, and it never appears.
• Filings get amended. Confidential treatment requests let managers delay disclosing a position they are still building.
• The manager may not be the person. Large institutions file one 13F across many strategies and desks.

Where do you find them?

Free, on the SEC's EDGAR system, under the manager's CIK number. They are also readable in a more digestible form on this site, one page per filer, with the quarter-on-quarter changes already computed.

What this cannot tell you

Whether the manager still holds any of it. The filing describes one day, up to 45 days before you read it, and the next one is three months away.

Educational information, not financial advice. Every figure on this page is read from the source filings when the page loads rather than written into the article, so what you are reading is today's data and not a snapshot of the day it was published.