Python for programmers, prompts for data analysts.
Every time a company's CEO or CFO sells a big chunk of stock, someone posts about it — usually with a headline implying the insider
knows something bad is coming. SEC Form 4 filings, the disclosures that trigger those headlines, are public and easy to pull. Reading
them correctly is a different matter.
Let's pull real Form 4 filings and see what the raw numbers actually say, once you check the fine print.
Want to try this yourself? The EODHD MCP Server is what
pulled the data above — connect it to Claude and ask your own questions (affiliate link).New here? The Setup covers
everything you need before your first prompt.
Pull the raw filings
🟧 PROMPT
Use the eodhd MCP to get Amazon's most recent
Form 4 insider filings.
The last ten filings include: CEO Andy Jassy sold $5,180,213 worth of Amazon stock on August 21, 2026, across four separate
transactions. Executive Chair Jeff Bezos disposed of 415,580 shares over two filings on August 25–26. AWS CEO Matt Garman, CFO Brian
Olsavsky, and three other senior executives all show sales in the same window, several exceeding $1 million each.
Read that paragraph alone, and it sounds like the entire leadership team is heading for the exits at once — millions of dollars in
stock, sold within days of each other, right around the same price level.
Ask what the transaction codes actually mean
🟧 PROMPT
Check the transaction codes and footnotes on those
filings — were these discretionary decisions?
Every single "sell" transaction in that batch — Jassy's, Garman's, Olsavsky's, Reynolds's, Zapolsky's, Herrington's — carries
transaction code "S" alongside a footnote citing a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, each one adopted months before the sale: Jassy's plan dates
to November 14, 2025; Garman's to May 4, 2026. These aren't decisions made the week of the sale. They're pre-scheduled disposals, set up
long in advance specifically so they can't be timed around inside information.Bezos's 415,580 "disposed" shares carry an entirely different code: "G," for gift. Price per share: $0. Total value: $0. He didn't
sell anything — he donated the shares to non-profit organizations.
Every alarming number in the first prompt turned out to be something other than what it looked like. Not one of the ten filings in this
sample was a same-week, no-notice, "I know something you don't" sale.
A word of honesty
This sample — ten filings, one company, one narrow window — doesn't prove that insider selling never signals anything.
Rule 10b5-1 plans exist precisely because some insider selling would otherwise be suspicious, or at least look that way; they're a
legal shield, not a guarantee of pure intent. An executive can still adopt, modify, or cancel a plan when they choose to — and a plan
set up right before bad news becomes public knowledge has drawn real regulatory scrutiny in other cases, just not in the filings checked
here. The absence of same-week discretionary selling in this batch is a fact about this batch, not a law of insider trading.
It's also worth noting what this data doesn't answer: whether the volume of scheduled selling itself means anything — a plan selling 5,
000 shares a month reads very differently from one liquidating a large stake all at once, even though both would carry the identical
10b5-1 footnote. Reading the code correctly is the first step, not the whole analysis. Not investment advice.
Final Thoughts
This is the thirty-first article in the series Unlock Real-Time Market Intelligence with EODHD and Claude, and it closes the loop this series opened with
SEC EDGAR back in Part 18: the raw filing has the truth, but only if you read past the headline number.
Two prompts pulled the alarming version first, then checked what the codes actually said.
So here's what they found: every one of the ten Form 4 filings checked — millions of dollars in apparent selling — turned out to be
either a Rule 10b5-1 plan set up months in advance, or, in Bezos's case, a charitable gift worth $0 in proceeds. None of it was a
same-week decision made on fresh information. The filing told the truth the whole time. The headline just skipped the footnote.
If this made you curious, the MCP Server is free to
try — The Setup walks you through
it.
← Part 30: The Volatility Crush: What Happens to IV the Day After Earnings
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