GetCoattail Research — The Filing Tape #178. Snowflake 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
Snowflake is one of the most searched-for stocks on Zacks.com lately, according to Zacks' October 23, 2026 note — and the search interest comes with a down month, not a rally. Over the past month, Snowflake shares returned −6%, against −1.2% for the Zacks S&P 500 composite and −5.8% for the Zacks Internet–Software industry (Zacks, October 23, 2026). The same note carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), a current-quarter consensus earnings estimate of $0.60 per share (+71.4% from a year ago), and a record of beating consensus earnings and revenue estimates in each of the trailing four quarters — last reported quarter revenue was $1.55 billion (+35.1% year over year) with EPS of $0.62 against $0.35 a year ago.
The price tape behind that note is a round trip with a strong second half. Snowflake closed 2026's first trading day at $216.71, fell to $150.82 by March 31, then rose 68.7% in Q2 to $254.50 and another 33.4% in Q3 to $339.56. The latest close in our daily price file is $325.43 on October 23, 2026 — +50.2% year to date, about 15.4% below the $384.56 52-week high shown in that file. The question the filings let us ask: during the quarter the stock rose 68.7%, did the smart-money register buy the recovery — or did it change hands entirely?
The Tape
| Lens | As of | What the filings show | Direction vs prior period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Superinvestors (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 7 of 147 tracked managers hold; 3,255,366 shares ($828.5M reported). Four new holders are 93.3% of the cohort. | Continuing holders −94.3% (verified, 3 funds) |
| All institutions (13F) | Jun 30, 2026 | 1,478 filers hold 274,491,782 shares ($79.0B reported). | Shares +23.76%; filers +209 |
| Insiders (Form 4) | Oct 2, 2026 | 0 open-market buys in the entire 308-filing record; 178 sells, $553.2M, in 90 days. | Selling continued; buying absent |
| Congress | Oct 3, 2026 | One House member reported 1 buy (Aug 7, 2026). No sells. | Buying only |
| 13D/G | Jul 30, 2026 | Passive only. BlackRock's 13G rose to 6.4%; Vanguard Group's went to 0.0%. | Largest passive reporter added |
| Short interest | Sep 15, 2026 | 18,775,604 shares short, 5.32% of shares outstanding; +64.6% year over year. | Down from the June peak |
Chart: SNOW through six filing lenses — who is actually there?
Superinvestors. The June-quarter register shows 7 of the 147 tracked managers holding Snowflake common stock — 3,255,366 shares, $828.5M at reported values, about 1.19% of all institutionally reported SNOW shares. Two debt rows in the managers file (convertible notes, not common stock) are excluded from that count. The register's shape is the story: four of the seven are brand new, and together they hold 3,038,558 shares — 93.3% of the tracked stake. Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital opened 977,710 shares (30.0% of the cohort), Viking Global opened 960,138 (29.5%), Whale Rock opened 884,691 (27.2%), and D1 Capital opened 216,019 (6.6%). The new labels were verified against the pipeline register, not assumed: each new holder's prior-quarter filing was located and contains no Snowflake position, including the two holders that share a series CIK with other funds, where the pairing was confirmed by CUSIP overlap rather than by CIK prefix alone.
The three managers that stayed tell the opposite story. Their verified continuing total collapsed from 3,771,305 shares in Q1 to 216,808 in Q2 — −94.3%. SCGE Management (Sequoia Capital Global Equities) cut 62.4% (535,000 → 201,200 shares), Winslow Capital cut 99.8% (3,226,305 → 5,608 shares), and Duan Yongping's H&H International Investment stood still at 10,000 shares. Every change label recomputes exactly from the paired register rows. Three named exits complete the turnover: Sands Capital's 4,178 shares, Jericho Capital's 1,591,778 shares, and Atalanta Sosnoff's 165,341 shares — 1,761,297 shares in total. The June cohort's implied price of $254.50 matches the June 30 close exactly, so the share arithmetic is clean. No September early filer holds Snowflake, so the June picture is not yet updated by an early Q3 filing.
Chart: SNOW short interest — 137 FINRA settlements, January 2021 to September 2026.
All institutions. The full 13F market broadened sharply in Q2: filers grew by 209 to 1,478, and reported shares rose 23.76% (+52,703,853 shares to 274,491,782). Reported value rose 108.1% to $79.0B — a mix of the higher share count and the quarter's 68.7% price move, and the value figure here includes option rows, so it is not a pure common-stock market value (the full-market implied price of $287.95 sits 13.1% above the June 30 close for exactly that reason, and the same gap appears in Q1). The tracked cohort's turnover happened inside a broadening institutional bid, not against a shrinking one — but the tracked register's composition changed far more than the market's did.
Insiders. The Form 4 record contains no open-market purchase at all. Across 308 parsed filings for Snowflake's CIK (filing dates January 2, 2025 through October 2, 2026; aggregated as of October 2, 2026), there are zero buy transactions in every window — 90 days, one year, and the full record — and zero officer buys. Against that: 178 sell transactions in the last 90 days covering 1,793,676 shares and $553.2M, at an average $308.44 — inside the window's $261.31–$356.47 price range — and 474 sells totalling $1,213.3M in the last year. The full record holds 719 sells totalling $2,256.6M from 12 sellers. The largest sellers are Frank Slootman (6,363,335 shares / $1,488.1M across the record) and Michael L. Speiser (964,079 shares / $216.4M). The parsed-file scan matches the aggregate buckets on every transaction count and value, so the zero-buy result is a parsed result, not a coverage gap. One flag for readers cross-checking the site: the site's live insider aggregate uses a different window (as of October 24) and shows different 90-day totals, so this article uses the parsed Form 4 aggregate through October 2 throughout.
Congress. The congressional tape is the one lens that points the other way, on a small scale. One House member reported a Snowflake purchase in 2026 (transactions on or after April 1): Gilbert Cisneros (D), one buy on August 7, 2026 ($1,001–$15,000). No member of either chamber reported a Snowflake sale in the window. The Senate register holds no Snowflake rows in the window; its older rows are from 2021–2024.
13D/G. The control register is passive-only: five filings, all Schedule 13G, no activist 13D. The notable mover is BlackRock, whose 13G position rose from 16,210,901 shares (4.9%, event March 31, 2025) to 22,250,796 shares, 6.4% (event June 30, 2026, filed July 30, 2026 — the latest filing). The Vanguard Group's position was amended on March 27, 2026 to 0 shares and 0.0%, i.e., below the reporting threshold, while the separate entity Vanguard Capital Management reported 5.13% (17,748,082 shares) in an initial 13G on April 30, 2026.
Short interest. The bear trade peaked with the price recovery and then unwound partway. FINRA short interest hit its series peak of 23,049,651 shares at the June 30, 2026 settlement — the same day the stock closed Q2 up 68.7% — then fell through the summer to 18,775,604 at the September 15, 2026 settlement, −18.5% from the peak, with 2.60 days to cover and 5.32% of the 352,800,000 shares outstanding. The year-ago comparison still points the other way: 11,408,077 shares a year earlier means the latest figure is +64.6% year over year. The short book shrank from its peak while the price rose into September, but it remains far larger than a year ago — no one-sided squeeze read fits this tape.
Fundamentals context. FY2026 revenue was $4,683.9M with a net loss of $1,331.6M and $9,132.5M in assets. The Q2 price move (+68.7%) far outran the full market's 23.76% share add — most of the quarter's institutional "buying" in value terms was the price move itself, not new shares.
The Gap
The search-interest story and the filing tape disagree about what kind of attention Snowflake is getting. Zacks' most-searched note pairs a down month (−6%) with a Buy rank and four straight earnings beats — attention, but not a buying stampede. The filings show something more specific: the concentrated smart-money register did not simply add to a recovery. It replaced itself. Four new managers opened 93.3% of the tracked stake in the quarter the stock rose 68.7%, while the three managers that stayed cut 94.3% of their combined position, and three managers exited entirely (1,761,297 shares combined).
The insider tape is starker still. Officers, directors, and large holders sold $553.2M of stock in 90 days and $1,213.3M in a year — the full record holds $2,256.6M of sales — while recording zero open-market purchases in 308 filings. The one House purchase ($1,001–$15,000) and BlackRock's rise to 6.4% on the passive register are real counterweights, but they are small against the insider selling and the cohort turnover. One plausible reading is that the Q2 recovery was bought by a new set of tracked managers while the old set and the insiders sold into it — a changing of the guard, not a consensus add. The 45-day 13F lag cuts both ways: the June picture is the latest complete one, and with no September early filer holding Snowflake, the Q3 register is still unwritten.
What Would Change the Picture
Nothing above is a recommendation. It is a record. What would change it:
- 1. An insider open-market purchase. Any Form 4 buy code "P" — especially an officer buy — would end a zero-buy record spanning 308 filings and show up on SNOW's insider page within days of filing.
- 2. Q3 13F season (filings due by November 16, 2026). Watch whether the four new Q2 holders add, hold, or trim; whether Winslow's 5,608-share remnant or SCGE's reduced stake grows back; and whether any tracked manager opens a new Snowflake position.
- 3. A new 13D or 13G. Any activist 13D, or a fresh 13G above 5% alongside BlackRock's 6.4%, would reset the control-register picture.
- 4. Short-interest direction. Two consecutive settlements of rising short interest after the summer unwind — or a fall back toward the year-ago 11.4M level — would each tell a different story about the bear trade.
- 5. The next earnings report. The filings above describe positioning into the current quarter, not a prediction of it; Zacks' current-quarter consensus estimate is $0.60 per share.
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 parsed filings span January 2, 2025 – October 2, 2026 (aggregated as of October 2, 2026), House/Senate disclosures through October 3, 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: One of 83: The Superinvestors Cut Zscaler 90.6% in One Quarter. Its Insiders Have Never Bought a Share. · Two of 83: One Holder Is 99.4% of the Superinvestors' Palo Alto Networks Stake. Its Insiders Have Bought Twice. · Track the tape on SNOW's stock page and the 13F filing season hub.
Revision history: v1.0 — October 24, 2026. Initial publication. Signals and lens aggregates: snow_lens_data.csv. Short-interest series: snow_short_interest_series.csv.
Past patterns are not a promise of future results. For education only — not investment advice.