Most government contracts never need the filing
For a contractor, government work is "ordinary course of business", which the rule excludes. Only a contract the company is substantially dependent on counts.
Case file · Public records vs. the market
Opened Nov 11 2026
Status: testing, no money
Blacklist before the filing
An Instagram reel said you can buy puts the moment a defense contractor lands on the federal blacklist, days before it has to tell the SEC. Our research agents found the reel, checked every claim, and came back with something more useful: a list of public records that really do show up before the news.
"Go to SAM.gov and open the official Federal Exclusions Registry… The second an agency slaps a contractor with an exclusion, their revenue pipeline is killed… SEC rules give corporations up to four business days to file a Form 8-K… Load up on out-of-the-money put options while the market is asleep… The stock craters 50%. Your puts print 800%."
Partly real · mostly mythThe 4-day rule is real. The trade, as told, is not.
Where the story breaks
Losing a rebid never triggers it
A contract that ends on its stated date is excluded in so many words. That is the most common way contractors lose work.
Defense records come out late
The Department of War holds its contract records back from the public for 90 days. The company has spoken long before.
Civilian agencies are no faster than the company
Terminations post in about the same window the company has, and the company is the other party to the contract, so it knows first.
Big contractors are rarely blacklisted
Most SAM.gov exclusions name small firms and individuals, and small contractors mostly have no listed options to buy.
The numbers have no source
The account labels itself AI content and posts a new "loophole" many times a day. Treat it as an idea to test, not evidence.
Where a real gap might be
The rebid loss. The Department of War posts every contract award of $7.5 million or more at about 5 PM ET each business day. The list names the winner, so the losing incumbent can be worked out from public award history.
−16%
Perspecta · Feb 2020the next day, after losing a recompete
−22%
Parsons · Dec 2025the next day, same pattern
The catch: the drop came at the next open, and listed options don't trade after 5 PM. What may still be reachable is the drift after the first open, or the move itself on a stock perpetual that trades in the evening, such as Kalshi's.
Ten records that show up before the market does
Ranked by how free and fast the data is, how likely an edge is, and whether we can trade it. Score is out of 27.
| # | Public record | What it can get ahead of | Real example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ClinicalTrials.gov changes a trial marked terminated, suspended or withdrawn; enrolment cut; dates pushed out | the company's trial-failure release | registry changes ahead of program stops |
| 2 | FDA warning letters posted Tuesdays, often 1–2 weeks after issue | the company's own disclosure, if any | ImmunityBio, Mar 24 2026: −22% intraday the day its letter went public |
| 3 | Late-filing and accounting flags NT 10-K, NT 10-Q, auditor changes, "can't rely on past financials" | documented drift after the filing | same-day on the SEC's daily index |
| 4 | Rebid-loss detector war.gov awards at 5 PM + who held the contract | the incumbent's own admission | Perspecta −16%, Parsons −22% |
| 5 | GAO bid-protest outcomes decision dates known up to 100 days ahead | the protester's or winner's release | a sustain can reverse a loss |
| 6 | NHTSA defect probes and recalls Kalshi perp fit | the wire story | Tesla −5.1% on the Aug 2021 Autopilot probe |
| 7 | SAM.gov exclusions the reel's idea, done properly | the company's release or 8-K | studies show negative returns, larger for small contractors |
| 8 | Court and patent-board rulings for small caps that live or die on one case | the company's press release | single-issue small caps |
| 9 | Federal Register public inspection index perp fit documents posted at 8:45 AM the day before publication | official publication, agency release | trade remedy and rule filings |
| 10 | WARN Act layoff notices 60 days' notice, about 40 state formats | layoff and restructuring news | evidence mixed |
Ideas from the other reels
The same hunt turned up ten more "public record first" posts. These are the claims as made; each would need its own test.
- USASpending contract awards: alerts for small and mid caps that just won federal work.
- Patent-board (PTAB) rulings: a microcap's flagship patent invalidated hours before its release.
- FDA 510(k) clearances: device clearances for sub-$5 names before their press release.
- Form 4 cluster buys: three or more insiders buying with their own cash.
- Congress trade disclosures: several members buying the same stock, some on the overseeing committee.
- Congress trade trackers: CapitolTrades, QuiverQuant, OpenSecrets.
- Insider-buying feeds: OpenInsider filters, sector insider maps, EDGAR full-text search.
- Read the 8-K exhibits: deal terms "not disclosed" in the press were in the same-day attachments.
- Satellite counts: parking lots and oil tanks before earnings (paid data; hedge funds already do it).
- Form 4 tracking: insiders bought MP Materials at $20 before it reached $70.
What we built, and what's next
Done
Found the reel and every copy of it
Our creator-intel extractor searched Instagram read-only, found the reel and three copies across a network of AI accounts, and transcribed the audio on a local GPU.
Done
A full research report
The SEC rules, the government data and how fast it posts, the legal question, case studies, which names even have tradeable options, and the ten ideas above.
Running
The SEC daily-index reader
Reads every filing on the SEC's daily index each morning. Holiday and new-quarter handling were fixed this week.
Next
The public-record log
Late-filing notices (NT 10-K, NT 10-Q) and auditor-change filings added to the daily reader, plus the war.gov contract feed parsed each evening, with the time each record was first seen. It runs forward and builds the history we need.
Next
The backtest
Contract terminations since 2008, a contractor-to-ticker map, and every related 8-K, scored against the go / no-go numbers below before any trade rule exists.
Not doing
Trading the reel as told
No puts on blacklist entries until the numbers pass. Nothing goes near a live account before that.
The go / no-go numbers
30%
of material events where the government record comes out first, by at least one full trading day.
−8%
average move from the record to the day after the company speaks, across at least 30 events. Puts only pay if the move beats what they already price in.
−3%
average drift in days 1–5 after the open, for rebid losses. The opening gap itself can't be caught with options.
50%
of signal names with listed puts: open interest 500+ near the money and a spread under 15% of the price.