How Insighthread Generates News From SEC Filings in Under 90 Seconds
A step-by-step look at what happens between a company filing with the SEC and a news item appearing in Insighthread, and why that makes the speed claim believable.
The Insighthread Team
Insighthread's news appears within 90 seconds of a company filing with the SEC.
That is a specific claim, so here is what actually happens in those 90 seconds.
Step one: a company files with the SEC
It starts when a US public company files a document with the SEC.
It might be an 8-K, a Form 4, a Form 13F, a Form D or an S-1, among other types.
The filing is published on EDGAR, the SEC's public database.
There is no reporter involved and no wire service in between.
Step two: Insighthread parses the filing
Insighthread reads the filing itself.
The news is generated from that document, not from someone's write-up of it.
The system only processes filed documents, so nothing unfiled can enter the pipeline.
That is why rumors are ruled out by design.
Step three: classify the event
Next, the filing is classified into an event category.
There are 34 event types across 10 groups.
They include Corporate Earnings, Dividends, Stock Buybacks, Mergers and Acquisitions, Insider Trades, C-Level Change, Legal Action and FDA Approval/Rejections.
The category appears as a badge on the news item, which is also what lets you filter the feed.
Step four: assign an impact signal
The item then gets an impact signal.
It is positive, moderate or negative, and it shows as a five-bar indicator on the item.
Read the explainer on the impact signal for how to use it.
Step five: publish a short item with the source linked
Finally, the item is published.
It runs about 50 to 60 words at most, and it is fact-only, with no opinion, no analyst commentary and no speculation.
Every item links directly to the SEC filing it came from.
In the app, the article's Sources section names the filing and its date, and you can open the filing from there.
The whole path, from filing timestamp to live, takes under 90 seconds.
Not every Form 4 or 13F becomes news
Some filings are high volume, so Insighthread is selective about them.
Insider trades from Form 4 filings make the feed when they are open-market purchases or sales of directly owned shares, and they meet at least one test.
The test is a single transaction of $500K or more, a cluster of two or more insiders buying within five days, or three or more purchases by one insider in 30 days.
Grants, option exercises, tax withholding, gifts, small trades and indirect holdings are left out.
Form 13F filings make the feed when they show a new position, a change of 20% or more in position size from the previous quarter, a full exit, or a position of at least 0.5% of shares outstanding.
A real example: QXO and TopBuild
When QXO announced its $17B acquisition of TopBuild, Insighthread published the main event and four related ones from the same company's filings.
They included a voting agreement and a beneficial-ownership disclosure, both from Schedule 13D/A filings, and a $253.9M private placement from a Form D.
Each was classified, tagged and linked to its exact filing.
One comparison used a major newswire's coverage of the same deal, which appeared five days after the filing with no source document attached.
You can read how that stacks up in our comparison with Dow Jones Newswires.
Why the Insighthread pipeline is credible
The speed and the structure come from the same decision.
Insighthread has no newsroom and no editorial layer, only a pipeline that turns the filing itself into news.
That means the same steps run every time, and every item can be checked against its source.
See it in action on the News feed, or read more about the News API.