What is a 13F filing?
TL;DR
A 13F is a quarterly SEC form (17 CFR § 240.13f-1) that institutional managers with over $100M in US equity assets must file within 45 days of quarter-end. It lists long US stock positions only — no shorts, no bonds, no options detail, no cash, no non-US holdings. The 45-day reporting lag is the single most important fact: by the time you read a position, the trade is 6 weeks to 4 months old. Use 13Fs for pattern recognition (consensus, themes, validation), not real-time copy-trading.
A 13F is an SEC form that institutional investment managers with over $100 million in assets are required to file every quarter. It lists their long US equity positions.
When are 13Fs filed?
Within 45 days after the end of each calendar quarter:
- Q1 (Jan-Mar) → due May 15
- Q2 (Apr-Jun) → due August 14
- Q3 (Jul-Sep) → due November 14
- Q4 (Oct-Dec) → due February 14
That 45-day lag is the single most important fact about 13Fs: when you see a position, the actual buy/sell happened 6 weeks to 4 months ago.
What's in a 13F?
For every position, the filing shows:
- Stock name + CUSIP (a unique 9-character identifier)
- Number of shares held
- Market value at quarter end
- Whether the manager has voting rights
What's NOT in a 13F?
- Short positions — completely invisible
- Options — disclosed only as notional, no detail
- Non-US stocks — only US equities
- Bonds, crypto, real estate, private equity — none of it
- Cash position — not disclosed
Should I copy 13F trades?
Probably not literally. By the time you read a position on HoldLens, the price has usually moved 5-15% from where the manager bought. 13Fs are for pattern recognition, not copy-trading — spotting consensus, identifying themes, validating your own picks.
Where can I read 13Fs?
Raw filings: SEC EDGAR. Painful to read. We do it for you on HoldLens.
Want the pure-reference encyclopedic entry — every 13F-HR / 13F-NT / 13F-HR/A variant definition with the SEC regulatory citation? Our sister site catalogs it: secfilingdex.com/learn/13f (filing-discovery reference; this page focuses on what 13Fs mean for tracked superinvestors).
Our view
The 45-day lag is a feature, not a bug. It filters noise out of the data. Managers who hold a position across multiple quarterly filings have demonstrated patience and conviction — qualities that don’t survive momentum chasing. The investors worth tracking are not the ones with the fastest trades; they’re the ones with the most durable theses.
That’s why HoldLens scores managers by multi-quarter trend and concentration, not by single-quarter activity. Read 13Fs for pattern recognition: where smart money agrees, where it disagrees with itself, and which themes are accumulating despite the headlines. Skip them for tactical timing — the data structurally cannot serve that purpose.
Foundational reading on securities analysis
You just learned what a 13F is. The three books below are where the managers themselves learned — Graham, Lynch, Munger. Start with whichever voice you want to hear first.
Bookshop.org affiliate links — HoldLens earns a 10% commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. Bookshop.org is the indie-bookseller consortium that supports local bookstores. These are the books we actually recommend. Always do your own research.
Not investment advice. See methodology for how we parse and score every filing.
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See 13F filings live on HoldLens
Live 13F tracker — every quarterly filing from 30 tracked managers, scored on the −100..+100 ConvictionScore. Manager rankings, biggest bets, new positions. Related SEC filings: 13D/13G activist, Form 4 insiders, DEF 14A proxies.