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Back To Normal: Insider Selling Outpaces Buying By 58 To 1

Tyler Durden's picture




After last week's outlier data, in which 3 buyers pushed the balance for the first time in over a year to a positive buyer/seller ratio, this week we are back to the new normal: a/k/a selling deluge. $488 million in shares was sold in the past week in 192 documents transactions, while just $8 million was bought in 38 deals. Notable dispositions included Bill Gates selling $85 million worth of MSFT, Roger Pensky dumping over $100 million, and Juniper Chairman Scott Kriens selling $12.5 million worth of JNPR stock. Also, after announcing a major trimming in his GOOG portfolio, Sergey Brin sold some "pocketchange" worth of Google stock worth $7.6 million. Source: FinViz

Full report:

 




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Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:42 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:46 | Link to Comment Leo Kolivakis
Leo Kolivakis's picture

Having studied insider selling for years, I can unequivocally state that it is a terrible indicator. Insiders sell for various reasons, many on a programmed basis to diversify their holdings. Insider buying is a better indicator but even that is not perfect.

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:48 | Link to Comment Daedal
Daedal's picture

Maybe on an individual basis, you are correct. But the point here is to look at the big picture.

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:52 | Link to Comment Assetman
Assetman's picture

On that basis, we should all be buying Chinese Solar stocks by the boatload. 

Or is it sunload?

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:55 | Link to Comment bobby02
bobby02's picture

same thought. i don't doubt the general conclusion that insiders are bailing in the face of steep valuations, but to be accurate the pre-arranged sales should be filtered out.

Wouldn't surprise me if Gates set up a multi-year plan, I remember Brin & Page doing it recently:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312510011019/d8k.htm

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 12:27 | Link to Comment Assetman
Assetman's picture

I think a general conclusion that analyzing insider activity is useless is a bit off the mark.

It would be more accurate to say, however, that analyzing insider trades is a very complex exercise.  And Leo is correct in surmizing that insider selling is more complex than insider buying.  I'm not quite sure that by saying "insider selling outpaces buying by 58 to 1" means anything without historical context or intensity.  That doesn't mean that aggregate activity is useless-- far from it. 

In my opinion, if one wants to dismiss the data altogether because of pre-arranged sales, option exercises, etc.-- I'm not going to stop anyone from doing so. 

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 13:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 15:57 | Link to Comment Rick64
Rick64's picture

It hasn't been a good indicator for the recent past.

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 11:48 | Link to Comment Hero Protagonist
Hero Protagonist's picture

Anyone have a link to a historical chart of the ratio of insider buying to selling over the past 10 years?

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 12:52 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 02/08/2010 - 12:10 | Link to Comment MsCreant
MsCreant's picture

I'm pretty sure you are right. I'll hold dollars for a while, ride the wave, look for a time to jump off and buy more PMs. But I do think we have some down distance to go. These bets need to unwind, after the unwinding faith in governments/fiats will be even worse, and the new safety must be something else. PMs will probably be one of those something elses. After some bottom dwelling in deflation, inflation will kick in.

I'd sell the physical gold I have now, and take the profits where I can (a little of it is underwater right now) but things can change so fast, and if I don't have it, I will be, shall we say, uninsured.

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 12:16 | Link to Comment Leo Kolivakis
Leo Kolivakis's picture

Andy, no surprise to me, I called last October.

Mon, 02/08/2010 - 12:31 | Link to Comment Hephasteus
Hephasteus's picture

http://twitter.com/OpenJonathan/status/8620937722

This is a crisis. It will not move forward till a way forward is made. This summer when the populations start calling the shots for real, hopefully, a way forward will be found. This is that point in a relationship where you either change something, leave or just soldier on. Except corporate world and huge government world isn't sleeping on the consumers couch getting sex and food whenever it wants. It's out in a swank abode bragging about all the billions in cash it has on hand making false promises to improve the lot of the world by killing poor people with heavy metals in syringes.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?p=2528659

Ya the dollars going up. Stuff is getting liquidated and theres huge demand to settle up. If it goes to 82 or 86 fagettaboutit. It better turn back around before the week ends or there won't be NEAR enough people psychologically ready for what's coming.

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