7 ms·

Show HN: Dashboard for tracking insider trading at S&P 500 companies

202 points by greatwave1 6y ago

_curious_ 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. What was the motivation to make this and use case?
capableweb 6y ago
Nice idea! More citizen tools for observing and inspecting the elite is always welcome and good project to work on. Some feedback: - INSIDER CONFIDENCE INDEX is missing some sort of description, not sure if it's actually Insider Sentiment Index which is a establish term or if it's something else. - Increase the contrast as almost all of the text (except table headers text) is hard to read without really focusing.
- greatwave1 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! The insider confidence index is a ratio of net insider selling/buying to the total average volume of a stock in the last 30 days. I will make sure to add a better description, and try to improve the fonts.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    > try to improve the fonts The contrast is less about the fonts and more about the colors. Just making the darker a bit more darker and the light a bit lighter should solve the problem. By the way, seems the page is now behind a login page, so it requires a signup, it was not like that before, so you're now not adhering to the guidelines for Show HN. > Blog posts, sign-up pages, curated lists, and other reading material can't be tried out, so can't be Show HNs. https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
    - throwaway82828 6y ago
      I don't think you're interpreting this correctly. A "sign-up" page here is one that just gets you on a list. You can certainly try this out, you just have to log in.
- jp555 6y ago
  "More citizen tools for observing and inspecting the elite" Yeah, this is a big reason smart people do not go into politics; the armchair-expert mob.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    Boo-hoo, you can't handle the critic of the public, then sure, don't go into the spotlight. Better that way as well so win-win for everyone. Do you have any sources where these self-proclaimed smart people tell us about their reasons for not going into politics? Many of the mainstream-smart people seem more interested in getting as much money for themselves than working for the public good.
    - samstave 6y ago
      This, plus most political narcissist think they can lie/talk their way out of anything - or when the questions are really pointed just act like they didnt hear the question and put on a huge grin and just ignore everyone. Lite Pete did. Or, play the Trump card and attack anyone who gets ybder the kimono too mych.
a-wu 6y ago
Appears to be hugged to death.
IanCal 6y ago
Currently 502ing, is there a description you can put up in a comment while it's down? Interested to know what this is, how it works.
cybert00th 6y ago
Not sure if this is local to just me (UK) but, when I try and load the site, it either 502s straight away or times out without loading. Anyone else seeing the same? edit: OK I see others are experiencing the same thing.
libman 6y ago
Legalize it!
bko 6y ago
I'm skeptical of claims that insider trading is prevalent among those that are not professional traders. I recently analyzed the trading activity of Senators [0], and found the evidence that rampant insider trading to be unconvincing. In its simplest form, insider trading consists of someone knowing something about performance or similar relative measures that would affect a stock price. But as Matt Levine points out, knowing the future isn't that helpful [1]. Research found that even when it has been proven that professional investors had and acted on insider information, their track record was still spotty. I even made an app [2] where you can get a companies past and future performance numbers, and you try and guess which of two opposite paths the stock took. I call it the insider trading game, and its a lot harder than it looks. [edit] Just reminded of the Jim Cramer still showing two headlines: "More than 16M Americans have lost jobs in 3 week, dow's best week since 1938" [3]. I'm skeptical a non-professional trader would be able to somehow deduce strong stock market performance from early access to something like 16mm Americans having lost their jobs in 3 weeks. [0] https://medium.com/ml-everything/analyzing-us-senators-stock-picks-e8106bbbe8e https://medium.com/ml-everything/analyzing-us-senators-stock... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-26/knowing-the-future-isn-t-that-helpful https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-26/knowin... [2] https://insider-trading-game.netlify.com/ https://insider-trading-game.netlify.com/ [3] https://i.redd.it/rrnajxjdb6s41.jpg https://i.redd.it/rrnajxjdb6s41.jpg
- andreilys 6y ago
  “knowing the future isn't that helpful” Did you actually read the article? It specifically talks about press releases put out by companies. That’s just a sliver of the type of insider trading knowledge you can trade off of. There are all types of other insider info. For example if you work at the FDA and know in advance what drugs are about to be approved/rejected. Also I tried your app and the prompt it gives is... not even close to insider info “ Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc is an integrated biopharmaceutical company. It discovers, invents, develops, manufactures, and commercializes medicines for the treatment of serious medical conditions.” I fail to see how this is helpful info? Now if on the other hand it said “the company discovered a COVID drug in final approval with FDA”, that would be much easier to trade on.
firstfewshells 6y ago
I think what would be more useful would be to have a summary of bulk deals for the major index tracking ETFs and S&P 500 companies. I haven't been able to get this data on any free platform.
- jklein11 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand what you are looking for? Do you have more information about these "bulk deals"?
  - firstfewshells 6y ago
    Basically, trades that exceed a large amount, say $10 million worth of Delta stock bought or sold.
    - jklein11 6y ago
      Is this the type of data you are looking for? https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/9655/data-source-for-historical-intra-day-bid-ask-price-data-for-stocks https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/9655/data-source-f...
rgbimbochamp 6y ago
Taken down. lmao
Emptysister 6y ago
nginx/1.10.3 (Ubuntu), really?
greatwave1 6y ago
The site kept getting hugged to death, so I'm temporarily adding a free login gate to reduce the traffic load
- capableweb 6y ago
  Keep in mind by adding that gate, you're no longer adhering to the guidelines of Show HN. I advise you to read through them before submitting more stories: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
  - throwaway82828 6y ago
    It might be a good idea to understand the guidelines before 'advising others.' The idea for this guideline is not to link to a teaser that can't be used. You can use this. You just need to sign in.
    - dang 6y ago
      It's sort of in-between. You're right that the rules don't exclude projects that require sign-in to try out. But users don't like it, and it's not encouraged. It's particularly repelling to readers if they click on a Show HN title only to go to a page that contains nothing but a call to sign up.
- dang 6y ago
  If the page explained why you added the form and made it clear that people are still welcome to try out the project, it would probably help. Most likely, clicking and encountering nothing but a login form is the reason why people started flagging the submission. When users see a page like that, they pattern-match it to a different kind of submission—a boring corporate promotion designed to collect signups. (We get a lot of those.) Keep in mind that many readers will have clicked before looking at the comments.
hughes7370 6y ago
This is a really interesting site, if you want to build into a company and need a partner to help raise capital and handle this business side, email me: hughes7370@gmail.com
hughes7370 6y ago
This is a really interesting site, if you want to build into a company and need a partner to help raise capital and handle this business side, email me: hughes7370@gmail.com
zjra 6y ago
looks interesting. i've been using http://www.openinsider.com http://www.openinsider.com so nice to have alternatives.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
annoyingnoob 6y ago
Straight to Login/Signup with no content? Must be a honeypot.
rnotaro 6y ago
Logins for the login gate: Username: testest Password: testest
- joeskyyy 6y ago
  Ahahaha, I thought you were merely joking... apparently not!
IBCNU 6y ago
bah - signup?!
- keanebean86 6y ago
  It wouldn't let me use my preferred username: <a> Worst. Site. EVER!
jonluca 6y ago
Flagged for taking you straight to a signup page, this is not Show HN eligible.
- whydoineedthis 6y ago
  fair flag. here's the home page for anyone interested. https://www.quiverquant.com/ https://www.quiverquant.com/
  - voisin 6y ago
    Still requires signup (at least on mobile) to see anything.
  - bko 6y ago
    Their homepage doesn't offer much either. Their blog has one post that shows an dual-axis line graph of % odds of a Sanders win and Tesla dollar stock price over 2 1/2 months. That comparison is laughably naive. https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/ https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/
    - whydoineedthis 6y ago
      yup, i fully agree. Their analysis looks about as accurate using a $5/hr psychic to pick stocks.
maest 6y ago
This goes straight to a signup page.
somid3 6y ago
Ugg, guys finviz.com already has this and they provide WAY MORE INFORMATION than what is provided. For example, let's look at Amazon: https://www.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=AMZN https://www.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=AMZN You can see who, when, which quantity, dollar amounts, dates... I signed up with your system and you only show in the LAST 6 MONTHS -- why not last century? Your title is a complete click and bait.
- akudha 6y ago
  how do they get the data so soon (15 mins)?
  - somid3 6y ago
    It is not in the last 15 mins. You'll notice there are two columns, the trade date -- in the middle, and the SEC filling date on the right. Sometimes people don't report for months.
maest 6y ago
Insider trader data has been mined to death, fyi. If there was ever any alpha in it, it's long gone.
dannykwells 6y ago
Some great correlation = causation analysis here (Sanders win likelihood vs Tesla stock): https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/ https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/ Sounds like the founders might need a basic course in stats, before giving stock tips.
altmind 6y ago
https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx

202 points by greatwave1 6y ago

Thanks for sharing. What was the motivation to make this and use case?

Nice idea! More citizen tools for observing and inspecting the elite is always welcome and good project to work on. Some feedback: - INSIDER CONFIDENCE INDEX is missing some sort of description, not sure if it's actually Insider Sentiment Index which is a establish term or if it's something else. - Increase the contrast as almost all of the text (except table headers text) is hard to read without really focusing.

greatwave1 6y ago
Thanks for the feedback! The insider confidence index is a ratio of net insider selling/buying to the total average volume of a stock in the last 30 days. I will make sure to add a better description, and try to improve the fonts.
- capableweb 6y ago
  > try to improve the fonts The contrast is less about the fonts and more about the colors. Just making the darker a bit more darker and the light a bit lighter should solve the problem. By the way, seems the page is now behind a login page, so it requires a signup, it was not like that before, so you're now not adhering to the guidelines for Show HN. > Blog posts, sign-up pages, curated lists, and other reading material can't be tried out, so can't be Show HNs. https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
  - throwaway82828 6y ago
    I don't think you're interpreting this correctly. A "sign-up" page here is one that just gets you on a list. You can certainly try this out, you just have to log in.
jp555 6y ago
"More citizen tools for observing and inspecting the elite" Yeah, this is a big reason smart people do not go into politics; the armchair-expert mob.
- capableweb 6y ago
  Boo-hoo, you can't handle the critic of the public, then sure, don't go into the spotlight. Better that way as well so win-win for everyone. Do you have any sources where these self-proclaimed smart people tell us about their reasons for not going into politics? Many of the mainstream-smart people seem more interested in getting as much money for themselves than working for the public good.
  - samstave 6y ago
    This, plus most political narcissist think they can lie/talk their way out of anything - or when the questions are really pointed just act like they didnt hear the question and put on a huge grin and just ignore everyone. Lite Pete did. Or, play the Trump card and attack anyone who gets ybder the kimono too mych.

a-wu 6y ago

Appears to be hugged to death.

IanCal 6y ago

Currently 502ing, is there a description you can put up in a comment while it's down? Interested to know what this is, how it works.

cybert00th 6y ago

Not sure if this is local to just me (UK) but, when I try and load the site, it either 502s straight away or times out without loading. Anyone else seeing the same? edit: OK I see others are experiencing the same thing.

libman 6y ago

Legalize it!

bko 6y ago

I'm skeptical of claims that insider trading is prevalent among those that are not professional traders. I recently analyzed the trading activity of Senators [0], and found the evidence that rampant insider trading to be unconvincing. In its simplest form, insider trading consists of someone knowing something about performance or similar relative measures that would affect a stock price. But as Matt Levine points out, knowing the future isn't that helpful [1]. Research found that even when it has been proven that professional investors had and acted on insider information, their track record was still spotty. I even made an app [2] where you can get a companies past and future performance numbers, and you try and guess which of two opposite paths the stock took. I call it the insider trading game, and its a lot harder than it looks. [edit] Just reminded of the Jim Cramer still showing two headlines: "More than 16M Americans have lost jobs in 3 week, dow's best week since 1938" [3]. I'm skeptical a non-professional trader would be able to somehow deduce strong stock market performance from early access to something like 16mm Americans having lost their jobs in 3 weeks. [0] https://medium.com/ml-everything/analyzing-us-senators-stock-picks-e8106bbbe8e https://medium.com/ml-everything/analyzing-us-senators-stock... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-26/knowing-the-future-isn-t-that-helpful https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-26/knowin... [2] https://insider-trading-game.netlify.com/ https://insider-trading-game.netlify.com/ [3] https://i.redd.it/rrnajxjdb6s41.jpg https://i.redd.it/rrnajxjdb6s41.jpg

andreilys 6y ago
“knowing the future isn't that helpful” Did you actually read the article? It specifically talks about press releases put out by companies. That’s just a sliver of the type of insider trading knowledge you can trade off of. There are all types of other insider info. For example if you work at the FDA and know in advance what drugs are about to be approved/rejected. Also I tried your app and the prompt it gives is... not even close to insider info “ Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc is an integrated biopharmaceutical company. It discovers, invents, develops, manufactures, and commercializes medicines for the treatment of serious medical conditions.” I fail to see how this is helpful info? Now if on the other hand it said “the company discovered a COVID drug in final approval with FDA”, that would be much easier to trade on.

firstfewshells 6y ago

I think what would be more useful would be to have a summary of bulk deals for the major index tracking ETFs and S&P 500 companies. I haven't been able to get this data on any free platform.

jklein11 6y ago
I'm not sure I understand what you are looking for? Do you have more information about these "bulk deals"?
- firstfewshells 6y ago
  Basically, trades that exceed a large amount, say $10 million worth of Delta stock bought or sold.
  - jklein11 6y ago
    Is this the type of data you are looking for? https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/9655/data-source-for-historical-intra-day-bid-ask-price-data-for-stocks https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/9655/data-source-f...

rgbimbochamp 6y ago

Taken down. lmao

Emptysister 6y ago

nginx/1.10.3 (Ubuntu), really?

greatwave1 6y ago

The site kept getting hugged to death, so I'm temporarily adding a free login gate to reduce the traffic load

capableweb 6y ago
Keep in mind by adding that gate, you're no longer adhering to the guidelines of Show HN. I advise you to read through them before submitting more stories: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
- throwaway82828 6y ago
  It might be a good idea to understand the guidelines before 'advising others.' The idea for this guideline is not to link to a teaser that can't be used. You can use this. You just need to sign in.
  - dang 6y ago
    It's sort of in-between. You're right that the rules don't exclude projects that require sign-in to try out. But users don't like it, and it's not encouraged. It's particularly repelling to readers if they click on a Show HN title only to go to a page that contains nothing but a call to sign up.
dang 6y ago
If the page explained why you added the form and made it clear that people are still welcome to try out the project, it would probably help. Most likely, clicking and encountering nothing but a login form is the reason why people started flagging the submission. When users see a page like that, they pattern-match it to a different kind of submission—a boring corporate promotion designed to collect signups. (We get a lot of those.) Keep in mind that many readers will have clicked before looking at the comments.

hughes7370 6y ago

This is a really interesting site, if you want to build into a company and need a partner to help raise capital and handle this business side, email me: hughes7370@gmail.com

hughes7370 6y ago

This is a really interesting site, if you want to build into a company and need a partner to help raise capital and handle this business side, email me: hughes7370@gmail.com

zjra 6y ago

looks interesting. i've been using http://www.openinsider.com http://www.openinsider.com so nice to have alternatives.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

annoyingnoob 6y ago

Straight to Login/Signup with no content? Must be a honeypot.

rnotaro 6y ago

Logins for the login gate: Username: testest Password: testest

joeskyyy 6y ago
Ahahaha, I thought you were merely joking... apparently not!

IBCNU 6y ago

bah - signup?!

keanebean86 6y ago
It wouldn't let me use my preferred username: <a> Worst. Site. EVER!

jonluca 6y ago

Flagged for taking you straight to a signup page, this is not Show HN eligible.

whydoineedthis 6y ago
fair flag. here's the home page for anyone interested. https://www.quiverquant.com/ https://www.quiverquant.com/
- voisin 6y ago
  Still requires signup (at least on mobile) to see anything.
- bko 6y ago
  Their homepage doesn't offer much either. Their blog has one post that shows an dual-axis line graph of % odds of a Sanders win and Tesla dollar stock price over 2 1/2 months. That comparison is laughably naive. https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/ https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/
  - whydoineedthis 6y ago
    yup, i fully agree. Their analysis looks about as accurate using a $5/hr psychic to pick stocks.

maest 6y ago

This goes straight to a signup page.

somid3 6y ago

Ugg, guys finviz.com already has this and they provide WAY MORE INFORMATION than what is provided. For example, let's look at Amazon: https://www.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=AMZN https://www.finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=AMZN You can see who, when, which quantity, dollar amounts, dates... I signed up with your system and you only show in the LAST 6 MONTHS -- why not last century? Your title is a complete click and bait.

akudha 6y ago
how do they get the data so soon (15 mins)?
- somid3 6y ago
  It is not in the last 15 mins. You'll notice there are two columns, the trade date -- in the middle, and the SEC filling date on the right. Sometimes people don't report for months.

maest 6y ago

Insider trader data has been mined to death, fyi. If there was ever any alpha in it, it's long gone.

dannykwells 6y ago

Some great correlation = causation analysis here (Sanders win likelihood vs Tesla stock): https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/ https://www.quiverquant.com/blog/ Sounds like the founders might need a basic course in stats, before giving stock tips.

altmind 6y ago

https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx