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Use this workflow to prepare an institutional-ownership review for an investment or research team. A 13F is a delayed, manager-reported snapshot; it does not show real-time holdings, total exposure, or investment intent. The finished record must make the manager CIK, report date, filing date, and source filing distinguishable.

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Prerequisites

  • SECAPI_API_KEY, curl, and jq.
  • The reporting manager’s CIK. This example uses 0001067983.

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1. Retrieve the reported holdings snapshot

The result is one selected 13F report plus holdings. valueUsdThousands is reported in thousands of US dollars, so preserve its unit rather than silently treating it as dollars.

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2. Compare the two latest parsable reports

The expected result names the two filing dates and provides changed, added, removed, or unchanged position rows. Save both dates with the output; a quarter-end report date and SEC filing date are different facts. This comparison selects the latest two parsable reports, not two arbitrary reporting periods.

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3. Resolve the source filings

Use the recent-filing list to attach accession-level source evidence to the comparison.
Join filings to the comparison by the returned filing dates, retaining manager CIK, report date, filing date, accession, filing URL, request ID, and position fields in your review record.

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Common errors and false positives

  • missing_cik means the route needs the reporting manager CIK, not a portfolio-company ticker.
  • The comparison needs two parsable reports; no result is not evidence that the manager has no exposure.
  • Position changes can reflect corporate actions, fund structure, options, reporting conventions, or a trade. Do not infer conviction from a row alone.
  • The filing-history route is a bounded recent scan, not a cursor-paginated full-history export.

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Production considerations

Schedule after expected filing windows, deduplicate raw reports by accession, and retain both raw report snapshots before publishing a change summary. Surface the delayed disclosure label in analyst tools and have a reviewer inspect the original filing before escalating a change. Cross-reference a specific issuer with insider transactions, keeping Form 4 and 13F evidence distinct. See the 13F comparison reference for the route contract.