13F Filings of Top Investors: A CIK Lookup and API Guide

There is no separate "top investors" category of 13F filing. Well known managers such as Berkshire Hathaway, Bridgewater Associates and Renaissance Technologies file the same Form 13F-HR as every other institutional manager with over $100 million in qualifying securities, under the same quarterly deadline. What makes them easy to follow is simply that their CIK, the SEC's permanent identifier for each filer, is known and stable.

This guide lists verified CIKs for several widely followed managers, explains what their 13F filings do and do not show, and covers how to pull any of them, or several at once, as structured data.

CIKs for well known 13F filers

These identifiers come from each manager's own EDGAR filing index, not from a third-party ranking site:

Why these particular managers are widely followed

Manager size is one reason: a 13F only has to be filed once a manager crosses $100 million in qualifying securities, and the managers above run many times that. Public interest is another: Berkshire Hathaway's filings are followed because its chairman is well known, while Bridgewater and Renaissance Technologies are followed for their size and track record as macro and quantitative managers respectively. None of this changes what the form requires or what it discloses. For a closer look at one filer's specific disclosures, see our guides to Berkshire Hathaway's 13F, Bridgewater's 13F filings and BlackRock's 13F filing, which also covers why BlackRock's own filing disclaims investment discretion over what it reports.

What a well known manager's 13F actually shows

Every 13F, regardless of how large or well known the filer is, has the same two parts and the same limits:

• The cover page: the filer's name, the quarter, and summary counts.
• The information table: every qualifying position, with issuer, CUSIP, value, share count, put or call flag, and voting authority.

And every 13F shares the same gaps:

1. No short positions. Only long positions in qualifying securities are reported.
2. Only Section 13(f) securities. Mostly US listed stocks, some ETFs and listed options. Most bonds, cash, non-US listings and private investments are excluded.
3. It is a delayed quarter-end snapshot. Filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so a manager's current positions can differ from what is published.
4. Confidential treatment can delay specific positions. A manager can ask the SEC to withhold a new position temporarily, so a published quarter is not always the complete list of everything the manager held at the time.

A large or famous name does not change any of these limits. Treat a well known manager's 13F the same way you would treat any other: a partial, delayed disclosure, not a live or complete record of the firm's strategy.

Be careful with third-party "top investor" rankings

Several sites aggregate 13F data into rankings of top holders or top portfolio values. Figures on these sites can be wrong or badly out of date. Always check a specific number against the filing itself, or against a dataset parsed directly from the filing's XML, before relying on it, especially for anything presented as a current ranking or total.

How to find any manager's 13F filings on EDGAR

You can browse any filer's 13F-HR history for free on SEC EDGAR company search using its CIK, filtered to form type 13F-HR. Each result opens a filing index with the cover page and information table as separate documents, in EDGAR's original XML format.

This works well for one filer and one quarter. Comparing several managers, or the same manager across many quarters, means opening each filing by hand and parsing the XML yourself.

Query several managers' 13F holdings with the SecFeed API

SecFeed parses every 13F-HR into structured rows, so you can query any of the CIKs above the same way. To pull one manager's latest reported holdings:

curl "https://secfeedapi.com/v1/form-13f/holdings?cik=1067983&period=06-30-2026" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

To check several well known managers in one pass instead of one request at a time:

from secfeed import Client

sf = Client("YOUR_API_KEY")
managers = {
    "Berkshire Hathaway": "1067983",
    "Bridgewater Associates": "1350694",
    "Renaissance Technologies": "1037389",
    "Citadel Advisors": "1423053",
    "Soros Fund Management": "1029160",
}

for name, cik in managers.items():
    rows = sf.holdings_13f(cik=cik, period="06-30-2026")
    total_value = sum(r["value"] for r in rows)
    print(name, len(rows), "positions,", total_value, "total reported value")

Each row carries the issuer, CUSIP, value, share count, voting authority split and put or call flag, the same fields documented for the 13F holdings endpoint. Run the same loop across two period values for the same managers to see which positions are new, which were closed, and which changed size between quarters.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an official SEC list of top 13F filers?

No. The SEC does not rank managers by portfolio size. Any ranking you see comes from a third party aggregating public 13F data, so check the underlying filing before relying on a specific figure.

How do I find a manager's CIK if I don't already know it?

Search EDGAR's company search by the manager's name, or see our 13F search guide for other ways to find a filer. Once you have the CIK, it stays the same even if the manager renames or restructures.

Do well known managers get special disclosure rules?

No. Every institutional manager over the $100 million threshold files the same Form 13F-HR on the same 45-day quarterly schedule, whether it manages $100 million or $100 billion. The only exception available to any filer, not just large ones, is temporary confidential treatment for specific new positions.

Can I see what a manager bought or sold last quarter?

Not directly. A 13F reports period-end positions, not individual trades. You can infer likely buying or selling by comparing share counts for the same CUSIP between two consecutive quarters, but the filing itself never states a transaction.

Is 13F data free?

Yes. All 13F filings, including those from well known managers, are public records on SEC EDGAR at no cost. Services like SecFeed charge for parsing the XML into structured, queryable data, not for the underlying filings.