Ranked list of US corporate insiders (CEOs, CFOs, directors, and 10%+ owners) by their average 12-month return on open-market SEC Form 4 purchases from the last 4 years (10+ qualifying trades, 10b5-1 planned trades excluded). Last updated .
Among the top-ranked insiders (10+ qualifying trades) are Benjamin G Wolff (+234.14% avg 12-month return), Durable Capital Partners LP (+230.38% avg 12-month return), James M Kilts (+211.66% avg 12-month return), G. Walmsley Graham (+210.75% avg 12-month return). The full ranked leaderboard with trade counts and win rates is shown in the table above.
For every SEC Form 4 P-code purchase made by a US corporate insider within the selected history window, finshort measures the stock's total return over the next 12 months and subtracts SPY's total return over the same window. That is the trade's alpha. We then aggregate per insider:
Past performance is not indicative of future results. This is research content, not investment advice. See disclaimer.
For each open-market purchase, we measure how much the stock returned over the following 12 months and subtract SPY's return over the same window. A positive alpha means the trade beat the broad US market.
10b5-1 plans are pre-arranged trading schedules where the insider cannot react to new information at the time of execution. We exclude them so the leaderboard measures discretionary timing skill rather than scheduled flow.
Choose a minimum sample size for qualifying trades. 10+ is the default and matches the minimum sample size used in academic insider-trading studies (Cohen-Malloy-Pomorski use 10+). With fewer trades, a couple of lucky picks during a hot market period can dominate the average alpha and produce misleading rankings. 3+ includes insiders with smaller samples; Any removes the trade-count filter entirely.
How far back the leaderboard includes buys. A buy is scored once its 12-month return resolves, so the newest 12 months aren't scored yet. The 4Y view ranks buys made 1 to 4 years ago. Max covers roughly the last 11 years.
The cache refreshes weekly. Forward returns only change as new trades mature past the 12-month window, so a higher cadence isn't necessary.
SEC EDGAR Form 4 filings (insider trades), with prices from Yahoo Finance (using adjusted close for splits and dividends when available). SPY is the benchmark for alpha.