INSIDERS REMAIN DOUBTFUL OF THE RALLY
by Insider Zone - December 9th, 2009 4:51 pm
INSIDERS REMAIN DOUBTFUL OF THE RALLY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Few things have been more confounding over the course of the 60% rally than the lack of insider conviction with regards to purchasing their own stocks. The latest data on insider selling and buying continues to show alarmingly low levels of buying accompanied by very high levels of selling. As we continue to see the very weak rebound in revenues and non-existent hiring it has become more and more clear why insiders lack conviction in their own shares – after all, without a rebound in hiring and organic revenue growth a sustainable economic recovery remains highly unlikely.
Yesterday’s Business Roundtable Survey confirmed much of this. Despite increased confidence over Q3 we continue to see very low confidence in future hiring and spending. Hence, the likelihood of a long and slow recovery remains very high:
“The economy is in the throes of a long transition back to health; recovery will be long, extending beyond 2010,” said Ivan G. Seidenberg, Chairman of Business Roundtable and Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications. “The outlook of our CEOs reflects that reality: we see noticeable gains in sales and capital spending, but employment growth continues to lag.”
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Visualizing The Insider Selling Spree: Bob Toll Takes First Prize… As Does Bill Gates
by Insider Zone - December 8th, 2009 11:31 pm
Visualizing The Insider Selling Spree: Bob Toll Takes First Prize… As Does Bill Gates
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
It seems like yesterday that Bob Toll was propounding the benefits of stimulus packages for housing and the ever improving status of new home sales (solidly grounded in the same sands as Dubai is now sinking into). Yet while we at Zero Hedge have enjoyed taking repeated stabs at Mr. Toll’s seemingly endless selling of his own stock, we have not learned our lesson. Which is why we present his insider transaction in a new and original way, courtesy of Bloomberg. As the image indicates, Mr. Toll’s money is roughly 180 degrees from where his mouth is.
Yet Bob is an amateur when compared to such prominent patriots as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, both of which have repeatedly stated their support for the good ole’ US of A. Indicatively, we present the most recent transactions by both Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett in BRK/B shares. This insider trading pattern is comparable for most other holdings of these two truly patriotic gentlemen.
Mr Buffett:
And Mr. Gates:
We encourage readers to request the insider trading activity of their personal favorite corporate executives. We will post the 10 most entertaining ones.
Update: due to several requests, here is all the insider activity in Goldman Sachs shares. As a reminder: red means stop… and in this case, sell.
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Most Recent Insider Selling to Buying Ratio: 82:1
by Insider Zone - December 7th, 2009 9:37 am
Most Recent Insider Selling to Buying Ratio: 82:1
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
You would think that insiders would finally change their tune after almost a year of straight line gains in the market. Think again. The most recent insider trading data from finviz indicates that insider sellling outpaces buying by a ratio of 82! In the most recent data set, $11.6 million in stock was purchased by insiders, while a whopping $957 million was sold. And somehow pundits are still spinning this mass orchestrated sell into the bid by those in the know as a bull market.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Insider Trades 12.7 finviz.pdf | 752.48 KB |
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INSIDER SELLING REMAINS ABNORMALLY HIGH, BUYING STILL NON-EXISTENT
by Insider Zone - November 30th, 2009 10:44 am
INSIDER SELLING REMAINS ABNORMALLY HIGH, BUYING STILL NON-EXISTENT
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
The trend in high levels of insider selling and low levels of insider buying remain unchanged this week as executives continue to sell into the rally. Of course, they’re not the only smart money that is now selling into the rally. Institutions recently turned neutral on markets after have been bullish on equities for the last 6 months.
For the latest week insiders sold $841.9MM worth of stock while
Insider buying remains heavily skewed by buying in Open TV (OPTV) where insiders purchased over $25MM or 67% of the total buying. Outside of the buys, insider buying remains disturbingly low:
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INSIDER SELLING SOARS HIGHER AS EXECUTIVES SELL INTO THE RALLY
by Insider Zone - November 23rd, 2009 2:29 pm
INSIDER SELLING SOARS HIGHER AS EXECUTIVES SELL INTO THE RALLY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Insider selling surged in the latest week from $960MM in sales to over $1.39B. Buying made a drastic improvement from $29MM to over $166MM. The improvement in buying is a positive sign, but the vast discrepancy in selling continues to overshadow the buying. Insiders are clearly viewing the run-up as a selling opportunity. This is consistent with the very tepid recovery we’ve seen in organic revenue growth thus far during the economic rebound. Executives are still unlikely to invest their personal fortunes in the companies they run due to the fact that they aren’t seeing the organic growth that so many equity buyers are hoping will develop once the government steps aside and stops propping up the economy. Thus far, there are little to no signs of this occurring and this is perhaps most evident in the personal use of insider buying and selling. [click on charts to enlarge]
Latest buys
Latest sells
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Goldman Principal-To-Agency Program Trading Ratio Hits Record 22x
by Insider Zone - November 20th, 2009 10:34 pm
Does a trading monopoly constitute insider trading, or just insider-like trading? - Ilene
Goldman Principal-To-Agency Program Trading Ratio Hits Record 22x
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
It has been a while since we revisited Goldman’s domination of NYSE program trading courtesy of the SLP [supplemental liquidity providers]. For the past two months we have been waiting for additional information from the NYSE on what other firms are currently SLP vendors to the exchange. By the lack of any data from the NYSE we can only assume that Goldman is still the defacto monopolist in SLP, and in essence the primary privileged DMM on the NYSE. One wonders with liquidity "back to normal" when the NYSE, SEC and Goldman will agree to disassemble the SLP program so that the market can go back to its efficient old-school ways (this is rhetorical).
As the data suggests, Goldman Sachs & Co. now has a staggering 22-to-1 ratio of principal to agency transactions: in the last week Goldman traded 662 million shares in principal capacity (instead of blaming all of this on Goldman’s prop trading cash machine, we would love to be able to break down how much of this is attributable to SLP, but a reborn NYSE which believes in nothing but transparency will simply not provide that data). Taking into account GSEC adds another measly 10 million agency shares doesn’t change the big picture that out of the top 10 NYSE firms, Goldman trades the third lowest amount on an agency basis. Goldman’s casino is now not even pretending to trade on behalf of clients, as all of its money is made on FICC spreads and volumes (aka trading monopoly).
[click on chart to enlarge]
Maybe one of these days Goldman Sachs can do a philanthropic, non-profit seminar on how to ramp futures every single day in the 11pm-3am block. That, or how to use taxpayer money to pay for a trunk line straight into the Marriner Eccles buildling.
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$1.5 Million In Blatant Insider Trading Profit Following 3Com Acquisition (Or An Innocent Calendar Spread)
by Insider Zone - November 11th, 2009 7:55 pm
Maybe we should rename this section the "Insider Trading Zone" and get a little more action. - Ilene
$1.5 Million In Blatant Insider Trading Profit Following 3Com Acquisition (Or An Innocent Calendar Spread)
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
3Com’s acquisition by Hewlett Packard for $7.90/share after the close today came as a surprise to many, but not all. Because someone bought 3 times the open interest in November $5 calls and 15 times the open interest of the December calls. In summary: 3,961 Nov $5 calls were purchased today (964 open interest) for $0.65, as were 3,269 December $5 Calls (210 open interest) for $0.85. The profit, assuming the insider action was by one entity, is about $870,000 on the Novembers and $650,000 on the December strikes, for a not too shabby illegal daily P&L of $1.5 million. This is so blatant it is sufficiently stupid that even the SEC will presumably catch the perpetrator. Here’s to hoping the trader ends up being Galleon’s Raj Raj buying options from his E-Trade account while on bail. Of course, we fully expect any prosecution case against the perpetrator to fall apart at the seams courtesy of a completely inept legal team at the SEC and the Justice Department.
The chart below summarizes the trading action in COMS $5 near term calls.
And here one can see what a blazing outlier today’s volume action was in December $5 calls.
h/t ever vigilant momo chaser C-Mac
*****
Zero Hedge later issued the following report on the squidy tentacled Goldman Sachs’ possible involvement.
Goldman And The 3Com "Insider Trading" Connection
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Following up on our earlier disclosure about potential insider trading in 3Com stock, we have uncovered something interesting. Did Goldman (in)advertently tip off clients that 3Com was potentially in strategic negotiations? 3Com was previously supposed to present at Goldman’s Data Center Techtonics Conference today at the Sheraton Hotel in New York (Agenda below). In a limited distribution note, Goldman yesterday advised selected clients that 3Com had withdrawn at the last minute from the Conference. As those in the industry are well aware, any last minute switches of this kind are indicative of imminent good or bad news dissemination, and more often than not are associated with some strategic announcement.
While the person buying the calls (if indeed this was not a calendar spread) may have been provoked to do so as a hedge against anything crazy out of the firm, it…
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Top Insider Transactions Update: $108 Million In Purchases On $706 Million In Sales, Gates Unloads Over $300 MM In MSFT
by Insider Zone - November 9th, 2009 1:07 pm
Top Insider Transactions Update: $108 Million In Purchases On $706 Million In Sales, Gates Unloads Over $300 MM In MSFT
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Courtesy of Finviz, the latest top insider transactions indicate that the increasingly artificial equity market still provides a very good opportunity for insiders who are looking for overeager momentum chasers and those managing idiot money for the likes of Fidelity, Putnam et al who read and do whatever reports by Goldmand and Bernstein tell them to do, to gobble up insider shares at ridiculous market valuations. Case in point: Mr. Bill Gates, who is so thrilled about the early sales performance of Windows 7 he can’t wait to offload that equity exposure on unwitting non-insiders.
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INSIDERS STILL NOT BUYING THE RALLY
by Insider Zone - October 26th, 2009 4:05 pm
INSIDERS STILL NOT BUYING THE RALLY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Insider selling for the latest weak spiked to $846MM while buying remained abnormally low at $14.7MM. Selling spiked almost 3 fold, but was highly impacted by $330MM in selling in CBS by Sumner Redstone. Buying, however, fell from $32MM. Of course, it is the low level of buying that is particularly alarming. Insiders continue to exhibit an unusually low level of confidence in their own companies. As valuations spike, and the jobless/revenue-less recovery continues it’s not surprising to see insiders display a high level of skepticism in the rally that is most visible through the use of their own money.
[Tables now unavailable, suffice it to say, the insider selling was a lot more than insider buying.]
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INSIDER BUYING REMAINS NON-EXISTENT
by Insider Zone - October 12th, 2009 10:42 am
INSIDER BUYING REMAINS NON-EXISTENT
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
The negative trend in insider selling and weak buying continued this week. The latest data shows that insiders sold a total of $461.25MM and purchased just $16.5MM. As we mentioned last week, insiders are highly skeptical of the sustainability of the liquidity driven rally. The next few quarters are likely to be pivotal as we begin to get real evidence of a revenue based earnings recovery or we continue to see weak cost cutting based earnings growth. My gut tells me the insiders aren’t entirely wrong here – revenues won’t recover at a robust rate and the insider selling will ultimately prove to be quite prescient.
Figures 1 and 2 not currently available.
Figure 3 – daily buying
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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
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