Insider Buying/Selling: The Collected Wisdom of a Thousand Heartbreaks
by ilene - April 27th, 2010 7:07 pm
Insider Buying/Selling: The Collected Wisdom of a Thousand Heartbreaks
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
With stocks challenging multi-year highs, I thought today would be a good opportunity to address one persistently negative datapoint that seems to be stuck in our collective craw – the trend of insider selling way outpacing insider buying in Corporate America. And no, I have no idea what the hell a "craw" is, I’m a northerner.
My pal The Pragmatic Capitalist has done an excellent job on his site of documenting the weekly flow of sellers versus buyers and as you can plainly see, insiders are simply not showing up and purchasing shares of their own companies. For example, insider buying totaled only $4.6 million worth of stock last week while selling hit $626 million.
Of course, this is not bullish…but is it straight-up bearish? Since I’ve fought all of these battles and learned a lot about the utility of tracking insiders (the hard way), I’ll share some of my insights on the subject and let you decide how meaningful this data is…
There will be generalizations below, take them with a grain of salt:
1. "Growth Stocks" don’t get bought by insiders and executives unless the shares get hammered by a one-time event.
2. Insider buying in "Value Stocks" is way more meaningful, especially in turnaround situations.
3. Technology executives would rather be locked in a dark basement, listening to Billy Joel’s…
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DiggINSIDERS STILL NOT BUYING THE RECOVERY TALK
by Chart School - April 26th, 2010 1:17 pm
Here’s Pragcap’s weekly report on insider trends. I added several charts from Insider Cow below. These charts show the lack of insider buying very graphically. The decline in the buying/selling ratio appears to be due to extremely low levels of buying, because the selling is not at particularly high levels. – Ilene
INSIDERS STILL NOT BUYING THE RECOVERY TALK
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Negative trends in insider transactions were little changed on the week as insiders remain heavy sellers of their own shares while purchasing next to none. Total
The 4 week moving average fell slightly to $6.36MM – a near low since the economy troughed in 2008. Insiders have remained skeptics of their own corporations despite recent signs of recovery.
Notable buying:
Notable selling:
Source: FinViz
Insider Charts from Insider Cow:
AN UNSTOPPABLE BEAR KILLING MACHINE
by Chart School - April 22nd, 2010 9:15 pm
AN UNSTOPPABLE BEAR KILLING MACHINE
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
A few weeks ago we joked that the SEC had banned all downticks. That might not sound so funny now as there have been almost zero downticks over the last two months. Stocks have rallied on 75% of all days and ever 0.5% dip has been aggressively bought into. This market is an unstoppable bear killing machine. Equities have reversed their full 1.5% losses from this morning as the “buy the dip” trade continues to dominate every minute of every day. The truly amazing rally just doesn’t quit:
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As an aside, you might ask, who ISN’T buying?
Corporate insiders, that’s who. Look at these charts from Insider Cow:
INSIDER BUYING REMAINS NEAR ITS LOWS
by Insider Zone - April 20th, 2010 2:13 pm
INSIDER BUYING REMAINS NEAR ITS LOWS
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
The negative trends in insider buying and selling continued this week as insiders sold a total of $896mm in stock and purchased just $6.3mm. Both were up from last week’s readings of $824MM in selling and the annual low in buying of $2.1MM. The 4 week trailing average of purchases remains near its recent lows.
As we’ve previously mentioned, this is a vote of no confidence in the sustainability of the long-term recovery as insiders simply refuse to use their own dollars to buy into this rally.
INSIDER BUYING HITS NEW LOW
by Insider Zone - April 12th, 2010 4:14 pm
INSIDER BUYING HITS NEW LOW
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Insider buying cratered in the week ending April 9th as corporate executives refused to buy into the rally after the recent surge in stocks. Buying has been consistently light since the rally started last March, but was particularly light this week. Total purchases of just $2.1MM was the lowest level during the entire 75% equity rally though the weekly average has ticked slightly higher over the last 8 weeks. Meanwhile, the heavy stream of insider selling continued as insiders unloaded $824mm onto the market.
Of course, insiders sell for various reasons so the high level of
Notable selling:
Source: FinViz
INSIDERS CONTINUE TO SELL INTO THE RALLY
by Insider Zone - April 5th, 2010 3:46 pm
INSIDERS CONTINUE TO SELL INTO THE RALLY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Insiders continue to display a remarkably low level of confidence in the stock market via the use of their own money. The latest data on insider buying and selling shows the continuing negative trends. For the week ending April 2nd, insiders sold $421MM while buying just $13.5MM. Both buying and selling were down substantially from last week, but the discrepancy between the two remains equally large.
There were no notable buying trends this week:
[click on charts to enlarge and go to the Finviz website - Ilene]
Notable selling:
Source: FinViz
INSIDER BUYING REMAINS NON-EXISTENT
by Insider Zone - March 29th, 2010 7:29 pm
INSIDER BUYING REMAINS NON-EXISTENT
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
The latest data on insider buying and selling showed little change in the bearishness of corporate insiders. For the week ending March 26th, insiders bought just $38MM in stocks while at the same selling $999MM. Both buying and selling were down from last week’s reading (see here).
Insiders have been skeptical of the sustainability of the rally as they have seen meager gains in sales growth over the course of the “recovery”. While selling has been remarkably high, it is the low levels of buying that remains most worrisome.
Notable buying:
Notable selling:
Insider buying and selling
by Insider Zone - March 22nd, 2010 12:39 pm
By Ilene
Following up on Pragcap’s article on insider buying and selling (below), here are several charts that show the trends, via Insider Cow:
Insider buying and selling charts
by ilene - March 22nd, 2010 12:10 pm
By Ilene
Following up on Pragcap’s article on insider buying and selling, here are several charts that show the trends visually from Insider Cow:
INSIDER SELLING HITS NEW 2010 HIGH
by Insider Zone - March 1st, 2010 10:09 am
Update on insider activity from Pragcap -- selling still far exceeds buying, confirming my thoughts on Feb. 20 that trends haven’t changed. - Ilene
INSIDER SELLING HITS NEW 2010 HIGH
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
The recent uptick in stocks has not been met with much enthusiasm by corporate insiders. In fact, pessimism rules the day in the land of insider buying and
Of course, insiders sell for numerous reasons so it’s foolish to look at insider selling alone, however, the low level of buying tells the real story here. Insiders simply don’t trust the long-term viability of the equity rally based on the condition of their internal operations. Perhaps most alarming in this data is the fact that it is not solely a problem in the United States. As we noted last week, the problem is pervasive in China as well where insider buying and selling trends remain negative. Clearly, Main Street investors aren’t the only ones aware of the government induced rally in stocks. The stimulus based recovery in China is apparently causing some concern in the corner offices in Hong Kong as well.
There was no notable buying this week, however, there were some interesting trends in selling. Sales across the consumer discretionary space we particularly heavy. Selling was very heavy in Whole Foods (WFMI) where insiders clearly desire to take profits following the 25%+ rally in recent weeks. Other notable sales included sizable selling by the CFO’s of TJX and VF Corp. As we’ve previously mentioned, sales by CFO’s are always intriguing because no insider knows the company finances like the CFO. All notable buying and selling is attached:
Notable selling:
Source: FinViz
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For updated Finviz data, go here for a list of recent buys and sells.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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