Method

a. What starts a signal

Only a real insider purchase starts a signal: an open market buy reported on a Form 4 with transaction code P. Sales never start one, however large. Planned sales, option exercises, grants and gifts do not count as buys.

Mutual funds and closed-end funds are left out. Several related owners count as one buyer, whether they file together or on separate filings that name any of the same owners. A corrected Form 4 takes the place of the one it corrects, so no purchase is counted twice.

Trades made under a pre-set 10b5-1 plan, a schedule an insider sets up weeks or months ahead, are shown but never count toward a signal.

Shares bought from the company itself, in a private placement or a share offering, are shown but never count toward a signal: the price was agreed with the company, not paid on the market.

A purchase whose price per share is more than ten times higher or lower than what the stock traded at that day, or over $10,000 a share when there is nothing to compare it with, is shown without a dollar amount and never counts toward a signal.

b. The points

All the buying of one company inside the window is scored together, not one buy at a time: the size is everything the insiders spent between them, and the role is the most senior of them. Points add up; the total decides the dots.

c. How a result is measured

Entry is the close of the first trading day after the filing became public. Results are taken at set points: 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months later, which is 5, 21, 63 and 126 trading days. Every result sits next to the S&P 500 over the same days, and every return is a percentage rounded to one decimal.

There is no return to today and no price chart, and no page or answer shows a price. A figure that moved every day could be turned back into the prices behind it, which the licence for those prices does not allow. Where a figure used to run to today, it is now the latest set point reached, and it holds until the next one arrives.

A sale is measured the same way and read the other way round: what the stock did after the sale against the S&P over the same days, sign flipped, so a good sale is one the stock then fell behind the market after. Sales are shown on their own, in an "After selling" column or line, and never count toward a purchase record, the signals record or a score.

Until the first result is in, the card reads "Result in 5 trading days", counting down.

Where prices come from: closing prices come from Tiingo, adjusted for splits and dividends, so a return is what a holder got with dividends counted. The S&P 500 line is the SPY fund, which follows the index, with its dividends included. Returns calculated by Aeon. Data sourced by Tiingo.

d. How a member's record is measured

Each report counts as one decision, the ticker it names, from the close of the first trading day after the report was filed. One ticker per report. Decisions carry equal weight; a return is the plain average.

Two boards, two rules. House and Senate members need at least 5 decisions and 3 companies to appear. Insiders need 3 buys, each with a one month result. Rows at the minimum carry the tag thin; under the minimum is not on the board at all. No board is shown without the S&P and prices for 90 percent of the stocks it needs.

Insider records include purchases from the year before Aeon started watching, measured the same way from the day each became public; the signals record counts only filings Aeon posted as they appeared.

e. Committees and the industries they oversee

A House or Senate card carries the tag "Oversees this industry" when the member sits on a committee that oversees the industry of a company in the report. A report that names several companies carries it when any one of them is in such an industry, and its details say which; on a company's own page the tag appears only when it is about that company. Who sits where is the current Congress, read each day from public lists that take the House from the House Clerk and the Senate from the Senate. A seat on a subcommittee counts as a seat on its committee.

A company's industry is the four digit code the SEC files it under. A trade counts when it is stock or options in a named company. A company with no SEC record, such as a foreign share traded over the counter, has no industry, so a trade in it never counts toward the tag. The SEC files card networks and payment processors under business services, with companies of every other kind, so the two banking committees name those by company instead. The table below says which industries each committee oversees and where that comes from: the committee's own page on what it oversees.

The tag is a fact about the committee, not a judgement about the trade. It does not say the member knew anything the public did not, broke a rule or traded because of a committee seat. It is checked against the committees the member sits on today, not the ones they sat on when they traded, and only for reports filed in the house the member sits in now. It never adds a point to a signal and never puts a stock in Strongest signals.

The table names the committees with an industry clear enough to name by its code. A seat on a committee not on it, such as Veterans' Affairs, Homeland Security or the Budget, never carries the tag.

f. How old the news is

The law gives each source time before a trade has to be reported. Every card shows the trade date and the day it became public. A fund report lands up to 45 days after a quarter that ran 90 days, so a trade in it is 45 to 135 days old when it becomes public.

g. The research behind the rules

The rules follow published work on insider trading. Short versions:

h. What this is not

Information, not advice. Aeon makes no picks and tells no one what to buy or sell. A signal is a count of what public filings say, scored by fixed rules written on this page.

The API carries no prices. Where an answer carries a return, it is the same set point figure the pages show, beside the S&P 500 over the same days.