Real-Time vs. Delayed Stock Alerts: Why the Lag Matters
Separate an event's date, its public disclosure and alert delivery. Reporting deadlines do not establish exact publication or product speed.
Check three times: when the event occurred, when its source became public and when the alert arrived. A reporting deadline is not a fixed delay. Most Form 4 transactions have a two-business-day deadline; Congress and quarterly 13F reports have different rules and describe different information.
Event time and disclosure time
Corporate-insider transactions, congressional transactions and quarterly holdings are different records. A 13F describes a quarter-end position, not an exact trade date. Congress reports can describe earlier activity, while a Form 4 has its own filing requirements and exceptions.
Publication and filing are not interchangeable
A source's recorded filing date does not always establish the moment a document first became publicly accessible. Our House filing-gap study measures transaction-to-filing dates and states that limitation explicitly.
Delivery is a separate measurement
To test notification speed, record when the source became available and when the service delivered the alert. A marketing promise or plan description is not a measured latency result. Compare the same source and channel across products.
Read the plan boundary
AlphaYou's Free plan uses a daily alert digest. Paid access and channels are defined by the current plans and settings. We do not present a paid-account delivery-speed benchmark in this guide.
A date pair you can inspect
The public Nike executive disclosure page shows its transaction and disclosure dates. Those dates illustrate source timing; they do not measure notification latency. Use the original record to check the event before judging the alert.
FAQ
Can a deadline tell me the exact delay?
No. A reporter can file before the deadline, and publication may have a separate timing.
Does a 13F disclose the trade date?
No. It reports certain holdings at quarter-end.
How should I compare alert speed?
Measure source availability and receipt using the same event, channel and conditions. Keep that separate from the age of the underlying activity.
Get the filings this guide is about.
Funds, Congress and insiders, read the moment they file. Free.