This stacks two signals: three or more insiders (top company executives, directors, or 10% owners) buying a stock on the open market in the past three months, and that stock being down 30% or more from three months earlier. The idea is that insider agreement plus a deep drop is a strong combined setup. It buys the day after the latest insider filing and holds for three months. Its past record is a rebound-year record: strong in 2020 and 2022-23, flat from 2024 to mid-2026.
Updated Oct 17 · 1 feed behind: Insider filings, 1 day · Every feed →
On this page
How the test works
The planned holding period in these tests is 3 months (90 days), from opening to closing an idea.
1
Buy it when it fires
At the next trading day’s close after the record posts — the first price anyone could have had.
2
Hold 3 months
day 1day 90
The same hold for every idea — no stop, no target — so nothing flatters the numbers.
3
Sell 3 months later
At the next available trading close on or after the end of the hold, whatever the price.
Every number on this page uses this sell rule — the other sell rules we tested are under “The full test results and the math” below.
How it did in past tests
⚪ Collecting forward evidence — past tests passed; new trades pending
Publication check: Collecting forward results
Not passed yet — 3 of 16 checks:
It needs at least 20 finished trades on 10 separate days after the rule was frozen.
Some of those new trades are still open; each has to finish its full hold.
Those new trades then have to beat similar stocks after costs, by more than luck across every rule we tried.
Passed — the other 13: Current calculation · Public disclosure dates · Complete finished trades · Every trade compared · Every trade priced · Enough separate trading days · Positive edge after costs · Survives without the best year · Survives without the best three stocks · Survives higher costs · Rule frozen before the test · Rules tried alongside it counted · First new signals set aside.
Tested exit: 3-month hold. Historical results alone do not approve a rule for publication. New event tests include an estimated 0.20 percentage point round-trip trading cost, with a 0.50-point stress check.
New trades so far: 0 finished, across — separate days after the rule was frozen.
5 signals set aside across 5 disclosure days; 5 still need complete results. Missing results stay in the count.
Average difference in past tests+8.0 percentage pointsagainst similar stocks, over 3 months
−8.0 pp0+8.0 pp
Left: did worse · right: did better. Zero matches the comparison. pp = percentage points; the scale adjusts to include the result.
In past tests, each idea returned
+17.3%
on average after 3 months · 2,952 tries
Similar stocks returned
+9.3%
this did 8.0 percentage points better
Made money in
1,900 of 2,952
tries (64%)
2,952 tries finished the 3-month test · 60 still open · 14,150 signals ever
Past results don't predict future ones.
Similar stocks means the index fund for each idea's sector — or the S&P 500 when we can't place its sector. (The S&P 500 for 329 of 2,952 tries here.)
How it did against similar stocks
8.0 percentage points better than similar stocks — over 3 months
Range for the average (95%)
+4.8 pp to +11.5 pp vs similar stocks — the range the average probably falls in, not a best-to-worst case
Results under the 3-month hold · 60 still open · 2,952 finished · each idea's sell day is 3 months after it fired · an open idea shows its result so far.
pp means percentage points: the difference between two returns. Actual returns are shown in %.
Average result (3 months)
+17.3%
range for the average (95%): +13.7% to +21.1%
Edge over similar stocks
+8.0 pp
range for the average (95%): +4.8 pp to +11.5 pp
Held a year instead: +56.2% on average (2,747 tries).
Steadiness (Sharpe ratio) 0.66 — solid: how even the results were from one try to the next.
Every sell rule we tested
Every sell rule we tested, side by side, comes with membership.
Risk and style checks
After style factors (market, size, value, momentum…) the edge is +3.5 pp instead of +8.0 pp — part of the edge is those tilts — the real edge is smaller. Tilts: Momentum −1.13 · Market +0.86 · Profitability −0.73 · R² 0.12.
The stocks it picked trade a median $2.8M a day; 44% of its ideas were in thin stocks (under $2M a day).
At one percent of that volume a trade is about $28.1K; with 60 ideas open now, an equal-weight book is about $1.7M.
The edge by market fear on the day it fired (the VIX): calm +2.1 pp (323 tries) · normal +6.0 pp (1,157 tries) · stressed +5.2 pp (228 tries).