Short seller signals — surfaced before they hit the tape
Mass layoffs, SEC Item 2.05 restructuring filings, and Chapter 11 petitions — cross-referenced into a single distress cascade. Built for activist short sellers, distressed credit desks, and research shops who need lead time on a position before the name is already ripping.
The Pre-Bankruptcy Cascade
Distressed names tend to leak signal along a predictable path. We surface each leg in near real-time, cross-reference it back to the ticker, and flag the cascade when multiple legs converge within 90 days.
WARN Notice Filed
State filing required 60+ days before mass layoff. Usually appears in a state portal days to weeks before press release.
SEC 8-K Item 2.05
Material restructuring costs disclosure. Often includes impairment charges and severance figures that move the estimate model.
8-K Item 1.03 / Ch. 11
Receivership, covenant breach, or Chapter 11 petition. PACER docket appears within hours of filing.
Equity Re-rate
Sell-side cuts, forced selling, liquidity thinning. By this leg, most of the easy alpha is gone.
See live cascade examples: Connected Signals →
What a Signal Looks Like
Company X — WARN + 8-K + Ch. 11 within 60 days
WARN notice for 240 workers filed with CA EDD on day 0. SEC 8-K Item 2.05 filed day 14 disclosing $48M restructuring charge. Chapter 11 petition filed day 54 in SDNY. Composite distress score crossed 9.0 on day 14 — 40 days before the press release that cut the stock 62%.
Company Y — H-1B hire overlap with WARN
Company laid off 380 workers per WARN while simultaneously sponsoring 120 H-1B workers in the same SOC codes. Talent Displacement Index (TDI) flagged. Often precedes a management shake-up or quarter miss on labor cost guidance.
Sector cascade — Commercial real estate
8 office-REIT tenants filed WARN notices in 3 major metros within 60 days. Metro Contagion Score + Industry Domino Index both crossed threshold. Short candidate list generated automatically from the sector-wide signal.
Retail chain — SEC Item 2.04 covenant breach
Item 2.04 (acceleration of direct financial obligation) landed 3 weeks after a WARN notice for store-closure layoffs. Credit spreads widened within 5 days. Chapter 11 filed 71 days after the WARN notice.
Live Distress Signal — Top Names Right Now
Pulled in real-time from /api/risk-signal. Score ≥ 4 only. This is the same endpoint you'd be polling on a paid tier — here it is, live, so you can see what a typical day's short-candidate screen looks like.
| Company | Score | Level | Factors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading live signal… | |||
Need tickers, webhook delivery, and backfill? See pricing or book a demo.
Pricing
Analyst desk with 1-2 short positions at a time. REST API, webhook alerts, all 5 distress indexes.
- 5,000 API requests/day
- All 6 datasets + 5 distress indexes
- Webhook alerts on company matches
- JSON / CSV / Parquet export
- Company watchlist (100 names)
- MCP server access for AI agents
Full research desk with multi-name pipeline. Priority data access, cascade alert webhooks, one Deep Dive report per quarter.
- Unlimited API requests
- Cascade detection webhook — multi-leg convergence
- Pre-earnings watchlist (up to 500 names)
- Snowflake / S3 delivery
- One Deep Dive Research Report per quarter ($10K value)
- Slack / email named account contact
For full hedge funds with multiple strategies. Everything in Activist Short plus fund-wide access and MNPI-aware contract.
- Full hedge-fund annual contract
- Custom webhook filters per strategy
- One Standard Research Report included
- 48h data SLA
- Quarterly roadmap call
API Endpoints You'll Use Most
Full docs: API Documentation →
Book a 15-minute demo
We'll walk through live cascade examples, show the webhook flow, and scope pricing to your desk.
One-off thesis work? Order a custom research report from $2,500 instead of a subscription.