A 13F-HR is a quarterly report every institutional investment manager with more than $100M in US-listed equities is required to file with the SEC. It lists every long US equity position the manager held on the last day of the quarter, in shares and dollar value.
Who files them
- Hedge funds (Bridgewater, Pershing Square, Citadel, etc.)
- Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds
- Mutual fund families and large RIAs
- Bank trust departments
WhaleWatch focuses on hedge funds — we filter out banks, pensions, sovereigns, and mutual-fund houses so what you see is actively-managed alpha hunters, not balance-sheet vehicles.
What 13Fs DO show
- Long US equity positions over a reporting threshold.
- A snapshot of each fund's portfolio at the close of the quarter.
- Reported share counts and dollar values per position.
What 13Fs do NOT show
- Shorts. Funds report only their longs.
- Foreign equities, cash, fixed income, or private holdings. A fund's real portfolio is almost always much bigger and more diverse than its 13F.
- Derivatives (mostly). Some options are flagged, most leverage is invisible.
- When the fund actually bought or sold. 13Fs are a quarter-end snapshot. The position may have been added in April or June — you cannot tell which.
The 45-day lag
Filings are due 45 days after each quarter ends. Q1 positions are typically all filed by mid-May, Q2 by mid-August, and so on. The data is always at least 45 days old, and may be older — funds are filing what they held weeks ago, not what they hold now.
How to read what you see on WhaleWatch
- Leaderboard. Funds ranked by an estimated return for the chosen period. Returns come from comparing what the fund owned at the start vs. end of the window, valued at the implied per-share prices in their own filings.
- Fund detail. Every position the fund held at last filing, with NEW / ADDED / REDUCED / HELD / EXITED tags showing how it changed quarter-over-quarter.
- Ticker detail. Every hedge fund that owns or recently traded that ticker.
- Activity feed. Every fund move that quarter, in chronological order.
Glossary
- AUM— Assets under management. WhaleWatch computes AUM from the reported dollar value of long US equity holdings in each 13F. This understates a fund's true AUM.
- CIK — A fund's unique SEC identifier.
- CUSIP — A unique identifier for a security. Tickers are derived from CUSIPs.
- NEW — Position that did not exist in the prior filing.
- ADDED / REDUCED — Existing position whose share count went up or down quarter-over-quarter.
- HELD — Existing position with no change in share count.
- EXITED — Position present in the prior filing but gone in the current one.
- Implied price— Reported dollar value divided by reported share count. Used as a stand-in for the fund's cost basis.
- Q/Q — Quarter-over-quarter change in a position or metric.
- Excess return— A fund's estimated return minus the S&P 500's return for the same window.
Important caveats
Copying a 13F is not a strategy. Funds with high turnover can have already exited by the time you see the position. Some funds use derivatives or shorts you cannot see. And every fund's thesis and risk tolerance is different from yours.
WhaleWatch is for research and learning, not advice. See the disclaimer for the full story.