GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #202. Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC) through six filing lenses, as of the latest filings. Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.
The Hype
Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC) is on TipRanks' "Trending Stocks by Analyst" page, where it sits with 4 Buy, 2 Hold and 0 Sell ratings, a Moderate Buy consensus, and a $366.40 price shown against 11.03% upside. The fresher news behind the attention is the third quarter. Norfolk Southern reported Q3 2026 results on October 22, 2026: Zacks reports earnings of $3.62 per share, beating the $3.48 consensus estimate, on revenues of $3.53 billion — a quarterly record, up 13.6% year over year, on 3% volume growth and higher revenue per unit. Behind that print sits a larger pending story: Morningstar reports Norfolk Southern agreed last year to sell itself to Union Pacific for $71.5 billion, a deal that still must clear regulatory review and that the companies expect to close in mid-2027 if the Surface Transportation Board approves it. Those are reported figures and a reported deal status, cited as the attention story — not figures this article verifies.
NSC closed 2025 at $288.72, stood at $287.00 by March 31, 2026, then rose 9.6% in Q2 to $314.59 by June 30, and closed the price file on October 2 at $317.44 — 0.9% above its June 30 close and 9.9% above its 2025 year-end close. The daily refresh (cross-source) puts the October 23 close at $329.99 — 4.9% above the June 30 close and 4.0% above the October 2 close. While the price rose through the quarter, what did the tracked holders, the broad market, insiders, members of Congress, and the passive register actually do?
The Tape
| Lens | As of | What the filings show | Direction vs prior period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 5 of 147 tracked managers hold; 3,396,628 shares ($1,068.55M reported). Dodge & Cox is 73.8%, Third Point 17.7%. | Verified continuing cohort shares −48.9%; no new holders; 1 exit in the Q1 register; register = cohort, residual 0 |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 1,861 filers hold 168,765,534 shares ($51.81B reported). | Shares +15.02%; filers +53; reported value +26.64% |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | 0 buys, 0 sells in 90 days (P/S codes); 3 buys, 1 sell in the year. 0 officer buys in any window. | 90-day window is silent; the only seller ever is one officer, 900 shares |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | No transactions in any congress file. | None — no House row, no Senate row, no member-file row |
| 13D/G | Apr 30, 2026 | 3 filings, all Schedule 13G forms; The Vanguard Group max 9.28%. | Entirely passive; no activist-form filing |
| Short interest | Sep 15, 2026 | 7,619,508 shares short, 3.39% of shares outstanding; 6.16 days to cover. | 28.3% below the February 2026 peak; +32.82% from prior settlement; +105.7% year over year |
Chart: NSC through six filing lenses — who is actually there?
Superinvestors. The tracked register for NSC is small, concentrated in one name, and it halved in a quarter. Five of 147 tracked managers hold 3,396,628 common shares — $1,068,545,203 reported — and the largest holder alone is 73.8% of it. Dodge & Cox Funds holds 2,508,128 shares at 0.41% of its portfolio, DECREASED −59.9% against a verified Q1 pair of 6,257,750 shares. Daniel Loeb - Third Point holds 600,000 shares at 4.03% of its portfolio, INCREASED +500.0% against a verified Q1 pair of 100,000 shares. Thomas Gayner - Markel Group holds 282,500 shares at 0.68% of its portfolio, UNCHANGED against a verified Q1 pair of 282,500 shares. Saturna Capital holds 3,410 shares at 0.01% of its portfolio, UNCHANGED. Mairs & Power Funds holds 2,590 shares at 0.01% of its portfolio, DECREASED −4.6% against a verified Q1 pair of 2,715 shares. All five continuing labels recompute exactly, under both pairing methods.
The verified continuing cohort fell by almost half: the 5 holders held 6,646,375 shares in Q1, so the cohort shrank 3,249,747 shares, or 48.9%, in Q2. That fall is more than one name's cut, even though Dodge & Cox dominates it. Dodge & Cox alone cut 3,749,622 shares — more than the cohort's net fall, because Third Point added 500,000 shares and Mairs & Power cut only 125. Two holders did not move at all. The Q2 register is exactly the cohort, and the Q1 register is exactly the cohort's Q1 pairs plus one exited holder, Bristol (John W. Bristol & Co.), with 1,035 shares in Q1 and nothing in Q2. No tracked holder joined in June, and both registers reconcile with a residual of 0. The cohort is 2.01% of the full market's reported NSC shares and 1.51% of shares outstanding — a small footprint that halved while the price rose 9.6% in Q2.
All institutions. The broad market moved the other way from the tracked cohort, on a much larger scale. Filers rose by 53 to 1,861, of which 1,859 are long, while reported shares rose 15.02% (+22,035,185 shares to 168,765,534). Reported value rose 26.64% to $51.81 billion — value up faster than shares, because the June 30 close ($314.59) sits above the March 31 close ($287.00). Underneath, 1,457 filers entered and 1,404 exited, net +53. Excluding the tracked cohort, other institutions hold 165,368,906 shares — the broad market's Q2 share growth dwarfs the tracked register's fall.
Insiders. This lens is silent in the recent window and nearly silent across the whole corpus. In the 90 days to October 2, 2026, insiders reported zero open-market buys and zero open-market sells: 15 filings, 0 buy transactions, 0 sell transactions. That silence needs its qualifier: fourteen of the 15 filings carry no non-derivative transaction codes at all, and one — George Mark R, on September 15, 2026 — carries M (exercise) and F (tax withholding) codes only. This lens counts only P and S codes, so none of that counts as a buy or a sell. In the year to October 2, 2026: 83 filings, 3 buys (4,454 shares, $1,259,860.97) against 1 sell (900 shares, $253,441.71), by 3 buyers and 1 seller, 0 officer buys, 1 officer sell. Across the whole corpus, the same shape extends: 147 filings, 4 buys (5,061 shares, $1,417,595.99) against 1 sell (900 shares, $253,441.71), by 4 buyers and 1 seller, 0 officer buys, 1 officer sell. The buys are all by non-officers: Anderson Richard H, 2,600 shares at $281.855 on October 28, 2025; Fahmy Sameh, 1,650 shares at $282.97 on November 6, 2025; Clyburn William Jr., 204 shares at $294.7915 on December 8, 2025; and, before the year window, Lamphere Gilbert H, 607 shares at $259.86 on February 3, 2025. The only seller in the entire corpus is an officer: Bhatt Anil, 900 shares at $281.6019 on November 20, 2025. Dates here are filing dates. The scan for issuer CIK 702165 (147 files, all NSC, January 3, 2025 to October 2, 2026) matches the aggregate exactly. One qualification matters: the site insider aggregate carries no NSC row, so the 90-day window is verified two ways (aggregate against scan), not three — and the article therefore never says "insiders bought" without the non-officer qualifier. Officers have never bought; the single officer transaction in the corpus is a sale. Implied prices sit inside the price-file range in every window where a price exists.
Congress. This lens is blank, and the blank is the finding. There is no NSC row in the combined file, no House row, no Senate row, and no member-file row through October 3, 2026. The article reports this as "no congressional transactions in the files", not as proof that no member ever traded NSC outside these files' coverage. Had there been transactions, they would be member-disclosure aggregates, not Form 4 insider transactions, and would never be added to insider totals.
13D/G. The control register is entirely passive and thin. It holds 3 filings: 0 Schedule 13D forms, 1 Schedule 13G form, and 2 Schedule 13G/A amendments, from 2 distinct reporter names. The largest reported percentage is 9.28% for The Vanguard Group (20,824,287 shares, event December 31, 2025, filed January 30, 2026). The latest filing is Vanguard Capital Management at 7.55% (16,955,045 shares, event March 31, 2026, filed April 30, 2026). The Vanguard Group's filing reports 0.0 shares at 0.0% (event March 13, 2026, filed March 27, 2026) — a below-threshold print, quoted as reported, not as a holding. The two Vanguard names are kept separate and not merged. The aggregate matches the parsed set exactly.
Short interest. The bear trade is well below its peak, rebounding from an August low, but still more than double its year-ago level. FINRA short interest stood at 7,619,508 shares at September 15, 2026, with 6.16 days to cover and 3.39% of the 224,608,373 shares outstanding (a point-in-time count as of June 30, 2026). That latest settlement is 28.3% below the series peak of 10,633,155 (February 27, 2026), 32.82% above the prior settlement (5,736,781 at August 31), 10.7% below June 30 (8,529,961), and 105.7% above the year-ago figure (3,703,963 at September 15, 2025). The last six settlements read: 8,529,961 (June 30), 8,266,038 (July 15), 7,624,518 (July 31), 7,296,473 (August 14), 5,736,781 (August 31), 7,619,508 (September 15) — four straight falls, then a rebound in the latest settlement. The series low is 1,429,922 (April 30, 2024). No step reaches 2× or falls to 0.5× (largest: 1.615×, March 31 to April 14, 2023; smallest: 0.702×, July 15 to July 31, 2024). The only flag rows are three revision flags (April 15, 2021; June 15, 2021; November 15, 2023).
The Gap
The attention and the filing tape pull in different directions, and the tracked cohort and the broad market pull against each other too. A trending listing, a record-revenue earnings beat and a pending $71.5 billion acquisition put NSC in front of readers — yet the tracked cohort halved in Q2, driven by its dominant holder cutting 59.9%, while the price rose 9.6% in the same quarter. The broad market added 15.02% in shares and 53 filers in the same quarter. So the gap is not between the price and the tape as a whole: the broad tape and the Q2 price rise agree, and the tracked corner disagrees with both. The one tracked counterweight is Third Point, which quintupled its position — but from 100,000 to 600,000 shares, still less than a quarter of Dodge & Cox's remaining stake. Insiders add no disagreement at all, because the 90-day window contains no open-market insider transaction in either direction, while Congress traded nothing, the control register holds no activist-form filing, and short interest sits below its peak but more than double its year-ago level.
What Would Change the Picture
Nothing above is a recommendation. It is a record. What would change it:
- 1. Q3 13F season (filings due by November 16, 2026). Watch whether Dodge & Cox trims further from 2,508,128 shares, whether Third Point adds again after +500.0% in Q2, whether Markel moves from its unchanged 282,500 shares, and whether any new tracked holder appears.
- 2. A first open-market insider transaction after October 2, 2026 would end a 90-day window with no P/S transaction — and a first officer buy would end a corpus in which officers have never bought.
- 3. A first congressional transaction would change a lens that currently holds nothing in any congress file.
- 4. A new Schedule 13D filing, a new passive reporter above 9.28%, or Vanguard Capital Management moving above or below its 7.55% March 2026 print would change a control register that currently holds no activist-form filing.
- 5. Short-interest direction. A fall back toward the August 31 level of 5,736,781 — or a rise back through the June 30 level of 8,529,961 — would each tell a different story about a bear position that fell four straight settlements, then rebounded.
As-of & Limits
| Lens | As of | Limit or note |
|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 13F figures are as of June 30, 2026, the quarter-end. Funds have up to 45 days after quarter-end to file, so this is the most recent complete picture — and it is always a lagging one. Common stock only (CUSIP 655844108); no option rows, no second class in the tracked file. All continuing labels recompute exactly under both pairing methods. Both registers reconcile exactly with residual 0; one exit (Bristol, 1,035 Q1 shares), no new June holders. The cohort's −48.9% fall is more than Dodge & Cox alone (cut 3,749,622 shares, against a net cohort fall of 3,249,747 after Third Point's +500,000 and Mairs & Power's −125). Mairs & Power sits on shared series CIK 1172661; its Q1 pair uses the CUSIP-overlap method (overlap 237, unique) and its label recomputes exactly, and the zero register residual confirms no double-count. |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | Reported value includes option rows by definition; implied price ($307.01) is not a price check. Value rose faster than shares because the June close sits above the March close. |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | This lens counts only P and S codes. In 90 days: 15 filings, 0 buys, 0 sells; in the year: 3 buys (4,454 shares, $1,259,860.97) and 1 sell (900 shares, $253,441.71); in the whole corpus: 4 buys (5,061 shares, $1,417,595.99) and 1 sell. 0 officer buys in any window; the only seller ever is officer Bhatt Anil (900 shares, November 20, 2025). The scan (147 files, issuer CIK 702165, January 3, 2025 to October 2, 2026) matches the aggregate exactly. The site insider aggregate carries no NSC row, so the 90-day window is verified two ways, not three. |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | No transactions: no combined row, no House row, no Senate row, no member-file row. Reported as "no congressional transactions in the files", not as proof about trading outside these files' coverage. Congress findings are member-disclosure aggregates, not Form 4 insider transactions, and are never added to insider totals. |
| 13D/G | Apr 30, 2026 | Entirely passive register: 0 SC 13D forms, 1 SC 13G, 2 SC 13G/A. Filing percentages are as reported in each filing; denominators differ by filing date and are not recomputed. The two Vanguard reporter names are kept separate. The Vanguard Group's 0.0-share March 2026 print is quoted as reported. Reporter-row sums across dates are not economic totals. |
| Short interest | Sep 15, 2026 | Shares-outstanding count is a point-in-time count as of June 30, 2026. No step reaches 2× or falls to 0.5×; the only flag rows are three revision flags. |
| Prices | Oct 23, 2026 (fresh close) | Price file ends Oct 2, 2026; the Oct 23 close ($329.99) and moves derived from it are cross-source (chart_stats) and labelled as such. The price file's splits field is empty and its rows show no break. The chart_stats 52-week-high field ($358.60) is a different window from the price file's 252-day high ($352.98) and is quoted as its own field. |
| Fundamentals | FY2025 | Recorded market capitalisation uses the record's own price_close ($316.31 as of Oct 6, 2026), not the Oct 23 close, and is quoted only as the record's figure. Shares outstanding are a point-in-time count as of June 30, 2026. |
| Hype source | Oct 26, 2026 (TipRanks trending list + Q3 results) | Listing (TipRanks "Trending Stocks by Analyst" page, 2026-10-23 values) plus reported Q3 2026 results (Zacks, October 22, 2026) and the reported pending Union Pacific acquisition (Morningstar, October 22, 2026) — all cited with links as the attention story, not as figures this article verifies. Price moves are measured from the price file and chart_stats. |
Methodology & disclaimer: 13F holdings are long common shares unless stated; reported values include option rows for the all-institutions lens by definition. Short interest is FINRA twice-monthly settlements. Trading costs and taxes are not reflected in any figure. Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.
This article describes filings and market data for education. It is not investment advice. Data: SEC EDGAR 13F (as of June 30, 2026, filed within 45 days), Form 4 corpus checked through October 2, 2026 (147 parsed files for issuer CIK 702165), House/Senate disclosures through October 3, 2026, SC 13D/G parsed register through April 30, 2026, FINRA short interest at September 15, 2026 settlement. 13F covers long positions of $100M+ managers only and is always a lagging picture. Trading costs and taxes are not reflected.
Related research: Seven of 147: Edgewood Is 49.8% of the Tracked Blackstone Stake — and the Cohort Cut 26.0% in Q2 · Four of 147: Edgewood Is 90.4% of the Tracked Vertex Stake — and Every Tracked Holder Cut in Q2 · Track the tape on NSC's stock page and the 13F filing season hub.
Revision history: v1.0 — October 26, 2026. Initial publication. Signals and lens aggregates: nsc_lens_data.csv. Short-interest series: nsc_short_interest_series.csv.