SEDI Insider Trading: How to Check Canadian Insider Buys

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A TSXV junior pops 30% on a Tuesday and somebody in chat posts “CEO’s been buying.” Maybe. Or maybe the CEO took units in the company’s own discounted private placement, with a free warrant attached. Those are very different trades. This guide shows you how to check SEDI insider trading yourself: how to search by issuer and by insider, how to read the transaction codes, and how they line up with the US Form 4.

SEDI insider trading means the trades that insiders of Canadian public companies, such as directors, senior officers and holders of more than 10% of the voting rights, report on SEDI (sedi.ca), the free public insider disclosure database run for the CSA. Each filing shows who traded, when, how many securities, at what price, and a code explaining what kind of transaction it was.

If you already know the US side, this is the Canadian counterpart to our guide on Form 4 insider buying.

In this article

What is SEDI?
How do you check SEDI insider trading? Step by step
What do the SEDI transaction codes mean?
Why is a placement subscription not the same signal as an open-market buy?
SEDI codes vs Form 4 codes
How fast do Canadian insiders have to report?
A quick checklist before you read anything into an insider filing
FAQ
Is insider trading on SEDI legal?
Blackout periods and why insider trades cluster
Limitations of SEDI data
Other ways to view SEDI data
More questions traders ask

What is SEDI?

SEDI (System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders) is the free public database at sedi.ca where insiders of Canadian reporting issuers file their trades in the company’s securities.

It is run on behalf of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA). Directors, the CEO, CFO and other senior officers, and holders of more than 10% of the voting rights are the usual “reporting insiders.” If they buy, sell, get granted options, exercise warrants or move shares into a holding company, it should show up on SEDI.

SEDI is separate from SEDAR+, where company documents like press releases, financials and offering documents live. You use both. Our walkthrough on checking dilution on SEDAR+ covers the document side. Menu labels on sedi.ca have changed over the years, so if a button reads slightly differently than below, the logic is the same.

How do you check SEDI insider trading? Step by step

Go to sedi.ca, pick your language, and open the public area for viewing summaries. You do not need an account to search. From there you have two main routes.

Search by issuer

Choose the insider transaction detail search (or “insider information by issuer”).
Search by issuer name, not ticker. Type part of the legal name and pick the right company from the list. Watch for old names after a rebrand or reverse takeover.
Set a date range. For a quick check, the last 90 days. For context, the last 12 months.
Leave the security designation open so you see common shares, options, warrants and RSUs/DSUs together.
Run it and read every insider’s block, not just the top one.

Search by insider

Use “insider information by insider” and enter the family name. This is how you see whether one director sits on five junior boards and buys all of them on the same day, or whether a 10% holder is quietly trimming across several names. Confirm it is the right person by checking the issuers listed under their profile.

What the result columns mean

Insider’s relationship to issuer: director, senior officer, 10% security holder, and so on.
Date of transaction vs date of filing: the gap tells you how stale the information was when it hit the public.
Ownership type: direct, indirect (for example through a holding company, with the registered holder named), or control or direction.
Nature of transaction: the two-digit code. This is the column that matters most.
Number acquired or disposed of, unit price, closing balance: size, price, and what they hold afterward.

What do the SEDI transaction codes mean?

The nature-of-transaction code tells you how the insider got or gave up the shares. The ones you will see most on small caps:

10, Acquisition or disposition in the public market. They bought or sold on the exchange like you would. A positive number is a buy, a negative number is a sale.
11, Acquisition or disposition carried out privately. A private deal between two parties, not on the exchange.
16, Acquisition or disposition under a prospectus exemption. On juniors this is usually a private placement subscription: shares or units bought directly from the company.
50 / 51 / 52, Grant, exercise, expiration of options.
53 / 54 / 55, Grant, exercise, expiration of warrants. Placement units often show a code 16 for the shares and a separate warrant line.
56, Grant of rights, often used for RSUs and DSUs.
46, Compensation for services, such as shares issued in lieu of fees.
90, Change in the nature of ownership, like moving shares from personal to a holding company. Not a buy or sell.
99, Correction of information. Ignore as a signal; it fixes an earlier filing.

Why is a placement subscription not the same signal as an open-market buy?

Because a code 10 buy means the insider paid the market price with their own money and got nothing extra, while a code 16 subscription is usually done at a discount the company set, often with a warrant, and the new shares add dilution.

Not every buy you see reflects personal conviction. When a company repurchases its own shares instead, read up on what a normal course issuer bid means for a small cap before you treat it as support.

Hypothetical example. Example Minerals Corp. (a made-up TSXV issuer, ticker XMPL) trades around $0.32. In the same month, SEDI shows two insider lines:

The CEO: code 10, +50,000 common shares at $0.32, direct.
A director: code 16, +500,000 common shares at $0.25, plus a code 53 line for 500,000 warrants at $0.40.

The director’s line is ten times bigger and will get screenshotted as “insider bought 500k.” But look at what each person actually did:

Price: the CEO paid the ask. The director paid a placement price below market.
Sweetener: the director got a warrant, which is upside with no extra cash until exercise.
Where the money went: the CEO bought from an existing seller. The director’s cash went to the company in exchange for newly issued shares, which is dilution.
Liquidity: placement shares typically carry a four-month hold. See when TSXV placement shares become free trading.
Motive: insiders sometimes join a raise to help it close or to show support. That’s not nothing, but it’s not the same conviction as buying in the open market with no discount.

Insider participation in a placement usually also appears in the closing press release on SEDAR+, often described as a related party transaction under MI 61-101 with the exemptions relied on. Cross-check that release against the SEDI lines.

When a placement or deal is significant, the issuer may also file a Form 51-102F3, and our guide explains how to read a material change report on SEDAR+.

SEDI codes vs Form 4 codes

If you trade both sides of the border, this table maps the common SEDI codes to the closest SEC Form 4 transaction codes (from the Form 4 instructions). It’s an approximation; the systems are not one-to-one.

SEDI code	What it is	Closest Form 4 code	Note
10	Public market buy or sell	P (buy) / S (sell)	The cleanest conviction signal on both sides
11	Private acquisition or disposition	P / S	Check who the counterparty was
16	Prospectus exemption (private placement)	P	Form 4 lumps placements into P; read the footnotes. SEDI separates them, which is an advantage
50	Grant of options	A	Compensation, not a purchase
51	Exercise of options	M (or X)	Often paired with a sale or shares withheld (F on Form 4)
53 / 54	Grant / exercise of warrants	A or P / X	Warrant exercises bring cash into the company and add shares
56	Grant of rights (RSUs, DSUs)	A	Compensation
46	Compensation for services	A	Shares in lieu of cash fees
47	Gift	G	No price signal
36	Conversion or exchange	C	e.g. converting a debenture
38	Redemption, cancellation, repurchase	D	Disposition back to the issuer
97	Other	J	Read the remarks

How fast do Canadian insiders have to report?

Under National Instrument 55-104, a reporting insider generally files within five calendar days of a trade, and files an initial report within 10 days of becoming a reporting insider.

Compare that with two business days for a US Form 4. So a SEDI filing can land a week after the trade, and the stock may have already moved. NI 55-104 and its companion policy also set out exemptions and alternative timing for certain things, such as some automatic securities purchase plans, which is why a few compensation entries may appear in batches. Late filings happen; the gap between transaction date and filing date shows you when.

Once a holder crosses 10%, they also hit the early warning regime. That’s a separate filing on SEDAR+, covered in our guide to the early warning report in Canada.

A quick checklist before you read anything into an insider filing

Is it code 10, or is it 16, 50, 51 or 56 dressed up as “buying”?
How big is it relative to the insider’s closing balance and to normal daily volume?
Are several insiders buying in the open market, or just one small token buy?
How many days between trade and filing?
Did a placement, option grant or warrant exercise close the same week? Check SEDAR+.
Are code 10 sales showing up right after option exercises?

None of this tells you where a stock goes next. It tells you what the people closest to the company actually did with their money, which is one input among many. For more Canadian context, the Canadian small caps hub links our TSXV and CSE guides.

FAQ

Is SEDI free to use?

Yes. Public searches on sedi.ca do not need an account. Only insiders and their filing agents need to register to file.

Can I search SEDI by ticker?

Search by the issuer’s legal name. Tickers are not the main search key, and a name change after a rebrand or RTO can hide older filings under the previous name.

Does insider buying on SEDI mean the stock will go up?

No. Insiders can be early, wrong, or buying for reasons unrelated to the near-term price. Treat a code 10 buy as context, not a trade trigger.

Why does my insider buy show up a week later?

NI 55-104 generally allows five calendar days to file, and some filings come in late. Always compare the transaction date with the filing date.

Is insider trading on SEDI legal?

Yes, the trades you see on SEDI are generally legal insider trading: insiders buying or selling their own company’s securities and disclosing it as required. Illegal insider trading is something else. It means buying or selling, or tipping someone else, while knowing a material fact or material change that has not been generally disclosed, and provincial securities laws prohibit it.

The short version: legal insider trading is insiders trading their own company’s securities and reporting it (SEDI in Canada, Form 4 in the US, covered in our Form 4 insider buying guide). Illegal insider trading is trading on material non-public information. A SEDI filing is disclosure, not a verdict. It does not prove a trade was proper, and it does not prove it was improper either.

Is SEDI moving into SEDAR+?

That is the plan. The CSA has said other national systems, including SEDI, are meant to be brought into SEDAR+ in later phases. Timelines can shift, so check current notices on the CSA website instead of trusting a date from a forum. If the move happens, the search screens may change, but the reporting rules under NI 55-104 are what define what insiders must file.

What happens if an insider files late on SEDI?

Securities regulators can charge late filing fees and can take enforcement action for insider reporting failures. The exact fees and rules vary by province, so look them up through your provincial regulator, linked from the CSA site. For you as a reader, a pattern of late filings from the same insider is worth noting.

Blackout periods and why insider trades cluster

Insider trades cluster because most issuers have an insider trading policy with blackout windows when insiders are not allowed to trade. Blackouts typically cover the period around quarterly and annual results and any time the company is sitting on material news. When results are out, the window opens, so open-market code 10 buys often appear shortly after results are released. Automatic plans set up in advance can still generate entries during a blackout, so a filing dated in a quiet period is not automatically a red flag.

Limitations of SEDI data

SEDI is the official record, but it has blind spots you should keep in mind:

Filing lag: insiders generally have five calendar days to file, so data can be a week old when you see it.
Late filings: some reports come in after the deadline, making them even staler.
Corrections: code 99 lines and amended filings can change earlier numbers, so one line may not be the final story.
Compensation noise: option grants (50), rights like RSUs and DSUs (56) and shares for services (46) pad the list without anyone spending cash.
Name changes: after a rebrand or RTO, older filings can sit under the previous issuer name.
Indirect holdings: shares held through holding companies or other entities show as indirect, so you need to add them up to see the full position.

Other ways to view SEDI data

sedi.ca is the free option and the source of record, but third-party sites such as canadianinsider.com and INK Research repackage SEDI filings into easier views. Some aggregators offer free views alongside paid tiers, so check each site’s current pricing yourself. A neutral way to think about it:

SEDI direct: raw official data, free, searched by legal issuer name. Clunky, but it is the record.
Aggregators: cleaner screens and history, but an extra layer that can lag or misclassify a transaction.

Whatever you use, verify the code, size and dates on sedi.ca before reading anything into a line.

Can you get alerts for new SEDI filings?

Some third-party services offer notifications for new insider filings. Treat any alert as a prompt to go read the filing, not as a reason to trade. Check the code, the size versus the insider’s balance, and the gap between trade date and filing date first.