Overview
Insider Trading works by parsing SEC Form 4 ownership filings for US public companies into clean, normalized transactions and layering on derived intelligence the raw filings do not carry - open-market buy versus sell totals, net insider activity, distinct insiders, and a bullish/bearish sentiment read. Compensation noise like option grants and tax withholding is separated from real open-market signals. Data is refreshed continuously from official SEC filings.
Formula
One function covers the whole catalog: the first argument names the source, the rest are its inputs, and the "field" pair says which single value lands in the cell. Formulas covers the grammar that applies to all of them.
=VERVE("insidertrading", A2, "field", "cik")=VERVE.CALL("insidertrading", A2, "field", "cik")A2 holds the ticker you are looking up. Drag the formula down and each row resolves on its own.
With literal values
Nothing has to come from a cell — typed values work the same way.
=VERVE("insidertrading", "AAPL", "field", "cik")=VERVE.CALL("insidertrading", "AAPL", "field", "cik")Inputs
Required inputs are positional, in the order below. Everything else is passed as a "name", value pair after them — the same shape as SUMIFS. Premium inputs are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.
| Input | Type | Where it goes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
tickerRequired | string | argument 2 (A2) | Stock ticker symbol (e.g. AAPL, MSFT, ADBE) length 1–6 |
typeOptionalPremium | string | "type", value | Filter to open-market buys or sells (buy or sell). |
limitOptionalPremium | integer | "limit", value | Number of transactions to return (1-25). Defaults to 5. range 1–25 |
Passing an option
=VERVE("insidertrading", A2, "type", "buy")=VERVE.CALL("insidertrading", A2, "type", "buy")What lands in your sheet
The "field" pair is what makes the formula resolve to one cell. Its value is a dot-path from the table below, so swapping it is how you pull a different value — one formula per column.
Seeing everything at once
Drop the "field" pair and the formula returns the whole response instead: two columns, field name on the left and value on the right, spilling from the cell you typed in.
=VERVE("insidertrading", A2)=VERVE.CALL("insidertrading", A2)The second row's table would land on top of the first's, and every cell after the first reads #REF! (#SPILL! in Excel). Keep one per sheet, or name a field, and leave the cells below and to the right empty.
Response fields
Paths are relative to data. Each one is exactly what the "field" pair accepts, so swapping it is how you pull a different value into a cell. On a plan without a Premium field the cell reads #PREMIUM(field) rather than a value, so a locked field never looks like a real answer.
| Use as "field" | Type | Example cell value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
ticker | string | AAPL | Stock ticker symbol for the company |
cik | string | 0000320193 | SEC Central Index Key unique identifier |
company | string | Apple Inc. | Official registered name of the company |
totalRecentForm4 | number | 512 | Total Form 4 filings in the company's recent feed |
count | number | 5 | Number of transactions returned in this response |
lastTransactionDate | string | 2025-10-14 | Date of the most recent insider transaction |
daysSinceLastTransactionPremium | number | 64 | Days since the most recent insider transaction |
transactions | array[5] | Recent insider transactions, most recent first | |
transactions.0.filingDate | string | 2025-10-16 | Date the Form 4 was filed |
transactions.0.transactionDate | string | 2025-10-14 | Date the transaction occurred |
transactions.0.insiderName | string | COOK TIMOTHY D | Name of the reporting insider |
transactions.0.insiderTitle | string | Chief Executive Officer | Role or title of the insider |
transactions.0.relationship | object | {…} | Insider relationship flags (director, officer, 10% owner) |
transactions.0.relationship.director | boolean | true | Whether the insider is a director of the company |
transactions.0.relationship.officer | boolean | true | Whether the insider is an officer of the company |
transactions.0.relationship.tenPercentOwner | boolean | false | Whether the insider owns 10% or more of the company's stock |
transactions.0.security | string | Common Stock | Title of the security transacted |
transactions.0.transactionCode | string | S | SEC transaction code (P, S, A, M, F, ...) |
transactions.0.transactionType | string | Sale | Human-readable transaction type |
transactions.0.direction | string | sell | Open-market direction (buy or sell), when applicable |
transactions.0.acquiredDisposed | string | D | Whether shares were acquired (A) or disposed (D) |
transactions.0.shares | number | 511000 | Number of shares in the transaction |
transactions.0.pricePerShare | number | 245.5 | Price per share for the transaction |
transactions.0.value | number | 125450500 | Total transaction value (shares x price) |
transactions.0.sharesOwnedAfter | number | 3280000 | Shares owned by the insider after the transaction |
transactions.0.accessionNumber | string | 0000320193-25-000118 | SEC accession number for the filing |
transactions.0.url | string | https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032019325000118/xslF345X05/wf-form4.xml | Direct link to the Form 4 filing |
summary | object | {…} | Derived insider-sentiment summary |
summary.totalTransactionsPremium | number | 5 | Transactions in the summarized window |
summary.distinctInsidersPremium | number | 5 | Number of distinct insiders transacting |
summary.buysPremium | object | {…} | Open-market buy totals (count, shares, value) |
summary.buys.countPremium | number | 1 | Number of open-market buy transactions |
summary.buys.sharesPremium | number | 5000 | Total shares acquired in open-market buy transactions |
summary.buys.valuePremium | number | 1132000 | Total dollar value of open-market buy transactions |
summary.sellsPremium | object | {…} | Open-market sell totals (count, shares, value) |
summary.sells.countPremium | number | 2 | Number of open-market sell transactions |
summary.sells.sharesPremium | number | 585213 | Total shares disposed of in open-market sell transactions |
summary.sells.valuePremium | number | 143349591 | Total dollar value of open-market sell transactions |
summary.netSharesPremium | number | -580213 | Net shares bought minus sold (open-market) |
summary.netValuePremium | number | -142217591 | Net dollar value bought minus sold (open-market) |
summary.buySellRatioPremium | number | 0.01 | Ratio of buy value to sell value |
summary.sentimentPremium | string | Bearish | Insider sentiment read (Bullish, Bearish, Neutral) |
summary.clusterBuyPremium | boolean | false | Whether multiple insiders bought in the window |
Filling a whole column
Both platforms make one batched call for a column rather than one request per cell, and both cost the same — 6 credits per row looked up. How you write it differs, because the two runtimes batch at different points.
=VERVE("insidertrading", A2:A100, "field", "cik")In Google Sheets, give the arguments ranges and the answers spill down from the cell you typed in. Custom functions there run synchronously and in isolation, so dragged cells cannot be coalesced — the range form is how a column becomes one call. The "field" pair is required here: a per-row two-column table has nowhere to spill. Use a full column per input (A2:A100, not A2) — a single-cell reference is read as row 1 only and the rest of the column comes back blank.
In Excel, type the formula once and fill down — no range form and none needed, because its runtime is asynchronous and the add-in coalesces the calls a fill produces into a single batched request. Do not hand VERVE.CALL a range: Excel flattens it into positional arguments, so A2:A100 arrives as a hundred separate arguments and the cell reads #ERR rather than filling.
Either way, column A holds your ticker values and the answers land beside them, one row each, blank rows skipped.
When a cell doesn't fill
A failed lookup returns readable text starting with #ERR rather than a spreadsheet error, because Excel cannot show a custom message on a real error — you would get a bare #VALUE! with no reason. The trade-off is that IFERROR() will not catch it; test with LEFT(cell, 4) = "#ERR" instead. Error handling covers the rest.
| Cell reads | What happened |
|---|---|
#ERR Not connected | No API key saved. Open the side panel and connect your account. |
#ERR Replace <name> with a cell or value | A preview formula was copied as-is. Swap the placeholder for a cell reference. |
#ERR No "x" in insidertrading | An option name this source does not take. The message lists the ones it does. |
#ERR No data point "…" | The "field" path is not in the response. Check it against the table above. |
#PREMIUM(field) | The field exists but your plan does not include it. |
#ERR Out of credits | The cycle's credits are spent. Usage resets on your billing date. |
Before the formula works
The add-in reads the API key you saved once in the side panel — the key never goes in the formula, so a shared sheet does not leak it and a collaborator without access simply sees the last calculated values.
- Install the add-in for Google Sheets or Excel.
- Open the side panel and sign in, or paste a key from your dashboard.
- Type the formula above into any cell.
Other ways to use Insider Trading
Set up Insider Trading on VerveSheets, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveSheets account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.
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