Insider's Buying & Selling (General News)

[winston]

From Fast money, CNBC;-

Lee brought in Mark Hulbert, a senior columnist for Marketwatch, who predicted the next 1600 points may be to the downside for the Dow based on the pattern of insider selling.

He said the sell-to-buy ratio has jumped to 5.77 to 1 in February, the highest since late July 2011.

He said the sell-to-buy ratio in November was 0.81 to 1.

He said insider selling at this pace has historically led to a drop in the Dow.

Source: The Street

[winston]

The insiders are selling heavily

Commentary: July was last time insiders were equally as bearish

By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — Corporate insiders are now selling their companies’ stock at a rate not seen since late last July.

That’s a scary parallel indeed, since that late-July spike in selling came just days before one of the more painful two-week periods in the stock market in years.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-in ... 2012-02-09?

[winston]

What the Insiders know… that other investors do not:

Executives are exposed to company secrets every day that other investors may not discover until months later.

Here’s just a partial list…

• Budget reports: the state of the company’s financials, before the reporting requirements kick in.


• Sales and order volumes: up-to-the-second info the public (or investors) won’t know until later.

• Production and overhead costs: these substantially impact profits when they change. Yet such changes don’t necessarily become public knowledge as they happen

• Marketing research results: an exec may discover the company is about to lose a large market segment. They can act on that info before a small investor can.

• Research & Development: an insider can buy stocks before a press conference announcing a breakthrough — or sell their stocks if a project has failed.


Bottom line: the Insiders have an unfair advantage… and laws that allow them to use it.

If you know the right way to use information, you can get the same edge for yourself.


Source: Insider Insights

[winston]

Chart Of The Week: This Is Who Is Selling by Tyler Durden

As we have pointed out before, the ongoing market tension is so palpable it can be cut with a knife.

As a reminder, institutional investors are now about as "all in" as they can be, spinning narratives about economic growth, housing bottom, and general improvement (despite all facts to the contrary), while waiting for one simple thing: to get retail investors buying again.

Because unless the Fed or ECB pumps another trillion or so in new liquidity there is simply no new purchasing money. However, as we have shown time and again, retail investors have had it with stocks, and are dumping domestic equity funds hand over fist despite the near vertical equity ramp fest, while money going into ETFs, that traditional straw man used by fund flow apologists, has been going almost exclusively into bond-related vehicles.

Yet one group of investors has not been waiting to find out which way this temporary stalemate will end (because either the buyers' money will end first, or retail will throw in the towel and after a 20% artificial, liquidity-driven move to the upside will capitulate and become the latest bagholder).

That group is corporate insiders: the people who know the fundamental prospects of their companies better than anyone, and certainly better than the propaganda media or the always wrong Wall Street sell side analyst brigade.

And as the chart below demonstrates, insiders are now out and selling in record quantities.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chart-week-who-selling

[winston]

According to CNN, the level of selling by insiders at corporations listed on the S&P 500 is the highest that it has been in almost a decade.

Do those insiders know something that the rest of us dont ?

Source: EC Blog

[winston]

Why Most Stock Market Systems Fail… And This One Doesn’t By Alexander Green

The least you should expect when evaluating a stock picking system is that is passes the common sense test.

That means it should be
a) easily understandable and
b) intuitively believable.

(In my experience, if an investment system involves things like Fibonaccinumbers or Japanese candlestick formations, it’s best to give it a miss.)

That’s why I’m surprised more investors don’t use one of the most intuitive and successful stock market indicators of all: heavy insider buying.

Many years ago, insiders could buy or sell at any time for any reason and just pocket the gains. Needless to say, this infuriated most investors who rightly saw the game as rigged in favor of those holding material, non-public information.

And so the federal government began requiring corporate insiders to file a Form 4 with the SEC any time they transacted in their own company’s shares, detailing how much they bought or sold, at what price, and when.

If you don’t think the smart money is watching insider activity like a red-tailed hawk, you don’t know the smart money. Corporate insiders have a treasure trove of information available to them and they can hardly forget this knowledge when they go into the market to trade.

They know, for instance, the direction of sales since the last quarterly report, what new products and services are in development, whether pending litigation is about to be settled, and plenty of other stuff those of us on the outside looking in couldn’t possibly know.

The insiders have an enormous unfair advantage in trading their own company’s shares. That’s why the government requires them to file that Form 4 within 48 hours of any transaction.

And I can tell you from looking at these filings almost every day that most insiders file the same day they buy or sell. And you should take advantage of it by buying the same things they are.

Numerous studies have shown that stocks with heavy insider buying substantially outperform the market. (How could it really be otherwise?) That’s why it makes sense to ride the coattails of knowledgeable officers and directors. Yet I often find that ordinary investors have no idea which companies have corporate chiefs who are loading up on the stock.

There is still due diligence required, of course. You need to know how many insiders are buying, for example, and what their track records are. Have they bought shares in the past? If so, did they buy low and sell high?

And if they sit on the boards of other companies, did they buy low and sell high there, too? If so, you should score their buying higher than you would otherwise.

In essence, insiders vote with their wallets. Every time they pile into a stock, they are in effect saying that with everything they know about the company – including all sorts of material, non-public information – they believe it is selling for less than it’s worth.

That’s an excellent signal. So if you’re looking for a stock market system that is easy to understand, intuitive and effective, insider buying is a great place to start.

http://www.yolohub.com/featured/why-mos ... one-doesnt

[winston]

Corporate Insiders Are Buying, Should We? by JC Parets

http://allstarcharts.com/corporate-insi ... should-we/

[winston]

SGX Bye Laws

1. No trading one month before announcement of Full & Half Year results

2. No trading within one week after release of Full & Half Year results and Dividends

[winston]

Insider Selling, It's baack !

Now that we are into 2013 and any possible tax related selling is out of the way, we have an update on insider activity from Vickers - and it's bad news for the bulls.

The ratio of insider sales to buys has surged from 6.67 to 1 in December, which was already at levels for bulls to be concerned, to over 9 to 1 today, according to this CNBC report [emphasis added]:

http://humblestudentofthemarkets.blogsp ... aaack.html

[winston]

As Insiders Head For the Exits, Do They Know Something "We' Don't Know? By Keith Fitz-Gerald

What Insiders Sales Say About the Market

My take is that the insiders are spot on. I also believe that the fact that they've chosen to sell aggressively right now suggests a looming correction is in the works. Here's why:

■ The markets have run higher against a backdrop of seriously flawed fundamental data, incessant Federal meddling, political disarray and a complete lack of supervision on Wall Street.

■ Insiders are taking profits at a time when the rate of earnings growth is declining and forward-looking forecasts have been dropped to almost laughable levels. They - the insiders - are well aware of not only market uncertainty, but corporate insecurity in the months ahead.

■ Markets tend to take a while to digest their gains after each run higher. Since 2009, for instance, the markets have taken nearly 12 months to consolidate after every 1,000 point run before moving higher. This means that there will plenty of dips, twists and turns that will test investor resolve.

Because the markets have an upside bias over time, most corrections, reversals and complete breakdowns generally turn out to be tremendous buying opportunities - a fact that will be lost on most investors who panic if a rollover gets started in earnest.

■ We have not seen the kind of "blow-off" action yet that has accompanied major market reversal points in the past, most notably those in 2000, 2003, 2007, and 2009. So I want to be on guard against the possibility if trading becomes frothy.

http://moneymorning.com/2013/02/08/as-i ... dont-know/