The Ownership Momentum Rank
A single 0–100 rank (OMR) that answers one question: how much ownership momentum is building in this stock — from actual SEC filings, not price action? Higher means more of the "smart money" (big institutions, company insiders, and funds) is accumulating it than in most other stocks this quarter.
What the number means
The OMR is built in two parts: a base from how a stock's ownership momentum ranks against its peers this quarter (institutions, insiders and funds), plus a bonus for rare catalyst signals — an activist stake, congressional buying, or a bullish options skew. So the very highest scores are reserved for stocks with a strong institutional base and one or more rare catalysts lining up behind it.
The base is deliberately relative — it tells you where a stock sits versus its peers right now, not an absolute prediction of returns. The catalysts only ever add; they never subtract (a stock is never penalised for lacking one).
Because a rank alone can be misleading in a quarter when almost everything is being sold, every score travels with an absolute tone drawn straight from the raw direction of the filings:
So a stock can read “82 · Mixed” — a high score, but with conflicting underlying activity. The tone keeps a strong number from ever looking like a guarantee.
The base — three pillars
The base blends three pillars. When a stock has no data for a pillar (say, no insider trades), that pillar is simply left out and the rest are re-weighted — a stock is only scored on the evidence it actually has.
Institutions — “Are funds piling in?”
From quarterly 13F filings: whether more funds are holding it than last quarter, whether the biggest funds are stepping in, whether high-conviction managers are making it a top position, whether existing holders are adding, and whether large "smart money" funds are buying while smaller ones sell.
Insiders — “Is management buying?”
From Form 4 filings: the net open-market buying (real cash purchases, not stock grants or option exercises) by the company's own executives and directors over the last 90 days, and how many of them are buying.
Funds & ETFs — “Are funds adding it?”
From NPORT filings: whether mutual funds and ETFs are adding the stock and growing its weight in their portfolios.
The catalyst bonus
On top of the base, three rare "smart-money" catalysts each add a bonus when they're present and pointing bullish. They're deliberately presence-based: their rarity is the signal, so a stock that has one should rank above an otherwise-identical stock that doesn't. They only add — never subtract.
Activist stake
A Schedule 13D activist position filed on the company in the last 180 days — an investor taking a large, intentional stake to push for change.
Congressional buying
Members of Congress were net buyers of the stock (more buys than sells) over the last 90 days, from their disclosed trades.
Bullish options skew
Funds' reported options positioning skews bullish — the majority of the options dollar value is in calls rather than puts.
The very highest scores therefore mean top-tier institutional momentum and all three catalysts aligned at once — maximally rare, maximally meaningful.
Reading the signals — what the combinations mean
The rank and the tone answer different questions, so they don't always point the same way. That's by design — and the combinations are where the useful nuance lives.
High score Reducing
The most common source of confusion — and it's not a contradiction. The rank measures how strong a stock's whole ownership-momentum profile is versus its peers (institutions, insiders, funds, plus any catalysts). The tone is a separate, blunt read of the raw latest direction: are holders and insiders net buyers or net sellers right now? So “84 · Reducing” is usually a name that built a strong momentum profile but whose most recent filings show net selling — the trend that earned the high rank is cooling. Read it as a caution flag on a high number, not a green light.
Low score Accumulating — the opposite: buying is happening, but it's too small or too narrow to rank highly against peers this quarter. Often an early or under-the-radar name that hasn't reached critical mass.
High score Mixed — a strong rank with a genuinely two-sided story: e.g. institutions piling in while insiders quietly sell. The number is real; the tone is telling you not everyone agrees.
The quarter-over-quarter move (▲ / ▼)
Next to each rank we show how it changed versus last quarter — because the move is itself a signal. But a big move can mean two very different things, so read it carefully:
- A jump off a low base (say 12 → 78) is an inflection — the smart money just turned toward a name it was ignoring. Interesting, but unproven: it's one quarter of evidence, and the biggest jumps often fade the next quarter. Treat it as “look here, and find out why” — a new activist? an insider cluster? — not as a buy signal.
- A climb from an already-high base (say 60 → 84) is acceleration of an established trend — more corroborated and more durable, if less of a surprise.
Both can end at the same number; the path (and the pillars behind it) is what tells them apart. Large moves are the noisiest part of the score, so use them to start a question, not to answer one.
ETFs & funds
The leaderboards rank operating stocks, so ETFs and funds (SGOV, ICVT, and the like) are filtered out by default — a fund's ownership “momentum” is really flows into the fund, not conviction in a single company. You can still browse them on their own under the “ETFs & Funds” view on /scores, and if you open a fund's page you'll see its score flagged as a fund — read it with that caveat.
Honest caveats — please read
- Quarterly, with a lag. The institutional backbone comes from 13F filings, which are reported quarterly and up to 45 days after quarter-end. We default to the consensus quarter (the most recent fully-reported one), not the quarter still being filed.
- Insider & Congress activity is fresher — a rolling 90-day window updated frequently — so the card shows two different "as of" dates on purpose.
- No price data. The score is built entirely from ownership filings. It knows nothing about valuation, price momentum, or news. It measures who is buying, not whether the stock is cheap or will go up.
- Thinly-held stocks are excluded. A stock needs a minimum number of institutional holders to be ranked, so tiny or barely-covered names don't produce noisy scores.
- It's a relative rank. Scores are only comparable within the same quarter. A 70 last quarter and a 70 this quarter are ranks against different fields.