Every quarter, the largest investment managers in the US hand the SEC a list of the stocks they own. That list is the Form 13F, and it’s one of the few windows ordinary investors get into what professional money is doing.
Who has to file
Any institutional investment manager with discretion over $100 million or more in US-listed stocks and a few related securities. That covers hedge funds, pension funds, banks, insurers and the big index-fund families. Thousands of managers file every quarter.
What’s in it, and what isn’t
- Long positions in US-listed stocks, ETFs, and some options and convertibles.
- The number of shares and their value on the last day of the quarter.
- How much say the manager has over voting those shares: sole, shared or none.
What’s missing matters just as much: short positions, most bonds, cash, shares that only trade abroad, and anything bought and sold within the quarter. A fund can look bullish on a stock while hedging it somewhere a 13F never shows.
The 45-day lag
Managers have 45 days after each quarter ends to file, and many use most of it. A 13F filed on the deadline shows holdings that are already six weeks old, and a position bought early in the quarter could be over four months old by then.
A 13F is a photograph, not a live feed. By the time you see it, the fund may have moved on.
How to read one fast
Skip the totals and start with what changed: new positions, positions sold out completely, and the biggest adds and trims. Then look at concentration. A stock that is 15% of a fund says far more than one that is 0.1%.
On HoldingScout, every fund page lays out those changes for you, quarter against quarter, with a link back to the original filing.