Insomniac Hedge Fund Guy

Insider Buying Week 6-23-23- The Fed Plays Whac-A- Mole

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The Stock Market is not supposed to go up for some perverse logic when the Fed tightens. Maybe because wealth is really intrinsically undemocratic in the mind of the elites. They want to kill any chance of their status being threatened. The market has been looking for a sign-  TO SELL. The Fed gave them one last week.  TO PROFIT, TO MORTALLY WOUND THE OPPONENT, A KICK IN THE FACE, EGOMANIAICAL ADVANTAGE. The Federal Reserve Chairman and his cohorts of rate-hiking Whac-a-Molers provided some fuel that ignited the latest bout of interest rate hike anxiety. Ironically the curve is the … Read more

Insider Buying Week 6-16-23

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Stock markets don’t go up every day, or do they? Friday might have been the crack in the armor as the generals sold off a bit. It’s hard to imagine what will bring the market down in the near term other than a bout of profit-taking in the big tech stocks that have run on AI mania. Of course, there are always black swans landing in unanticipated places, but a market being overvalued has never been a reliable case for a sell-off. That’s always a dicey proposition, thinking like that, but the bull is out in the pasture- there’s no … Read more

Insider Buying Week 6-09-23 Investors are Clipping Coupons while the S&P 500 storms higher 12% YTD

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It was a quiet week when it came to insider buying.  Dish Networks had a big percentage move off the bottom as rumors floated that Amazon might be finally making a move with the cellular bandwidth that Dish has spent so many billions of dollars accumulating.  On Friday, it gave back 12.5%.  Nothing deters  Director DeFranco as he bought $ 1.8 million more of Dish. There might actually be a plan for their madness, and it may have nothing at all to do with Amazon.  Perhaps there is a SpaceX rescue coming?  At this point, Dish stock is like an … Read more

Insider Buying Week 6-02-23 Animal Spirits Return

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Animal spirits returned in force last week. The average insider returned 7.96% and a median return of 6.61%. The S&P 500 scorched 3.97%. The safe money crowd collecting their guaranteed 4%-5% is near the half-year point. They’ve earned a little less than their guaranteed 2%. That’s 2% for the year to date when the market just turned in twice that for a week. Fear of missing out, FOMO, is a dangerous thing.  One way to avoid that investment mistake is to pay attention to what insiders are doing. Normally they don’t chase their stocks in a FOMO moment. They are … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-26-23

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It’s all AI, Chat GPT, large langauge models, and generative image models. Nvidia’s blowout quarter and guidance sent the market into a bull run seizure moment.  Meanwhile, you hear more and more stories about fake information generated by this “breakthrough AI,” including the latest example on Twitter where an attorney was reprimanded by a judge for his brief, which included fake prior cases entirely fabricated by AI. We can’t ignore the promise, but we certainly shouldn’t be blindsided by the hype. Tread carefully here. At the Insiders Fund, we try to filter out the noise. Here’s what real insiders are … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-19-23 If you want to play a game of chicken- Tyson Insiders are Buying

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No one really believes the U.S. will default on the debt.  The least of which are these insiders stepping up to buy their company’s stock last week.  If we’re talking a game of chicken, I say look at what Tyson Foods insiders are doing.  Five insiders took advantage of the steep share price drop on Q1 earnings disappointment.  Albemarle insiders continue to bet on the lithium economy. If you’re inclined to bet on default, take a look at the PRA Group’s earnings disaster and the new CEO purchase.  Debt collection could be a hot new growth market. You can be … Read more

When it comes to Financial Advice Bard and Chatbot GPT are just a new twist on the Old Shell Game

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All the buzz and the action are about Chatbot GPT, Bard, and large language model generative text and imaging capabilities.  I’ve heard this hailed as the most important invention since electricity and fire. I want to call a giant timeout and bubble alert.  As you know, as a first step in my analytic process, I assiduously track insider buying and selling using paid services like Secform4.com to scrape free information off the SEC Edgar website. I try to fathom what the insider sees that Mr. Market may be missing.  So I asked Bard (Google’s beta AI offering) what insider filings … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-12-23 Prelude to Something but What?

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Insiders are coming out in force to buy regional and community banks.  Normally significant insider buys are met with a predictable market response, a positive bounce between 3%-5%. This is not happening.  There is no urgency, as the stocks, for the most part, are lower than when the “informed investor” purchased the shares.  I like to believe that no one knows more about the business than the people running it, but banks may be a glaring exception to my dogma.  First of all, banks’ balance sheets are complicated and notoriously obtuse.   2008 should serve as an indelible reminder of that. … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-5-23 Banking Blood Bath is it time to Buy?

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Insiders came out to play last week. It was not pretty, but insiders are bottom fishers, as a rule. They buy in force when prices are down when they perceive a bottom.  Regional bank insiders were all over the field scooping up prices that haven’t been seen since the Pandemic lows. Unfortunately, most of it was in regional bank stocks. Bank stocks are notoriously difficult to understand. First of all, they are highly leveraged, between 5-10% Tier 1 capital ratios which is the ratio of a bank’s core tier 1 capital—its equity capital and disclosed reserves—to its total risk-weighted assets.  Usually, that … Read more

Banks rising from the Dead?- not so hot for the Greens Insider Buying Week 4-28-23

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Insiders continue to buy regional and community banks. In most likely a classic case of the baby being thrown out with the bathwater, the KRE, regional bank ETF, showed signs of bottoming but Microsoft and Meta stole the limelight with better-than-expected quarterly earnings. It hasn’t been a good week for the Greens. First, the Chilean government decides they are going to nationalize the country’s lithium reserves. Chile is the world’s second-largest producer of metal essential in electric vehicle batteries. Enphase, the leading inverter and one of the leading battery suppliers to the solar panel industry, swooned 15% on lower-than-expected earnings … Read more

Insider Buying Week 4-21-23 Lithium Stocks Crash, Director buys more Lockheed Martin, and the Curious Case of Domo

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Reuter’s headline news Friday that Chile is nationalizing the vast lithium deposits sent Albermarle and the rest of the lithium economy into a tailspin. More than half of the estimated global lithium resources are located in the salt flats of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, much of that in Bolivia.   For the time being, lithium stocks are uninvestable. Think Casear Chavez and Chevron’s disastrous write-offs in Venezuela.  It will be interesting to see if there is any insider buying in the world’s largest public producer, Albermarle.  Perception usually trumps facts when it comes to stock market investing.  The repercussions of this … Read more

Insider Buying Week 4-14-23 The Fed stopped hiking rates even though they won’t acknowledge that.

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There was next to nothing to write about regarding insider activity last week. We are in the heart of darkness regarding insider activity. This is how I describe the quarterly blackout period before corporate earnings are released.  Insiders seem to be as gloomy as all the market pundits. They might not be paying much attention, but the market, as measured by the S&P 500, is up over 8% YTD.   Hopefully, we have something clever to say about that in our 1st Quarter Partner letter.  It’s up on our website at Partner Letters. The world changed on March 10th when the … Read more

The Bull Charges as Bears Run in Disbelief Insider Buying Week 3-31-23

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It may be the calm before the storm but the bulls are running. The Fed’s rapid interest rate hikes came to a screeching halt last week. The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price (PCE) Index came in below expectations Friday.  Hiking interest rates has been one of the key policy tools used by the Fed to cool the economy and ease inflationary pressures. Many investors have been concerned about whether the pace of rate hikes and keeping rates higher for longer could drag the U.S. economy into a recession. That all came to a sudden and unexpected … Read more

Bye Bye Jay Time for Another Chair Insider Buying Week 3-24-23

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We are deep in the darkness, the earnings blackout period in which corporate insiders are restricted from buying their own shares. It’s a perfect time for short sellers to prey on the frazzled nerves of investors that just experienced their first bank run since the Great Financial Recession of 2008. This time the run wasn’t caused by Wall Street and banks that sold liars loans to uncreditworthy customers but instead by the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve itself. Jay Powell left interest rates at zero far too long and raised them far too fast. He failed at running the … Read more

Federal Reserve Chairman Powell is a Dangerous man

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I wrote to clients in the February update that  Federal Reserve Chairman Powell is a dangerous fellow.  Last week he proved that causing a run on the banking system.  Ironically if the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP)had been in place the week before, Silicon Valley Bank might have avoided failure and bankruptcy. Powell’s rapid hike in interest rates as a cure for the supply-side inflation shock is likely to be as successful as the ancient but now discredited medical practice of bleeding the patient. If Powell was the CEO of a public company, activist shareholders would … Read more

One way this is not like 2008, Insiders are NOT Buying -Insider Buying Week 3-10-23

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This is LIKE 2008, contrary to what you may have heard about the recent Silicon Valley Bank failure.   Banks either don’t want to pay competitive deposit rates or can’t.  Competing with Fed Chairman Powel’s ~5%  treasuries is hard. Actually no banks can compete with it. Vast sums are being withdrawn from the banking system. Ironically the stock market is on the only place you will be able to compete with the yield crisis that the Fed is precipitating.  Many solid companies are paying good dividends with the likely prospect of raising them.  So tell me, how is this not like … Read more

‘t want to go down.

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Despite the best efforts of banking emperors like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan or all-knowing market strategists like Mike Wilson of Morgan Stanley, this stock market refuses to go down.  Last week’s market rally has already numbed the pain from February’s losses. The bulls are stomping their hoofed feet at the fences, dying to bust out. An insomniac lies awake at night, Puzzling over a conundrum so tight; the answer eludes them, it’s out of sight, And the puzzle keeps them up till daylight. They toss and turn, and they try to sleep, But the puzzle is just too deep; … Read more

Hedge Fund Analysts Class 2nd Semester- a Word about Attendance

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I have very flexible rules about work and participation in the Insiders Intern Analyst program. Still, one of them is non-negotiable, and I make that clear in the interview process. The main question I asked everyone in the intern interview process- is whether you will give it the time it deserves, not just for yourself but out of respect for my time and the time of our fellow interns. If you can’t make a meeting, that’s understandable, but you should put forth and share work or insight of some kind to make up for your absence. it’s assumed you are … Read more

The Fed has a Hammer but needs a Scalpel Insider Buying Week 2-24-23

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It’s a commonly held view amongst market strategists that the Fed follows interest rates, not determines them. You don’t have to look very far to see plenty of evidence of that.  It’s a quiet conspiracy amongst talking heads and futures markets that economic events and statistics are immediately reflected in real-time price action in the bond markets, dot plots, and other dynamic markets. The Fed will often talk up its view, and by the time they do take some action on rates, it’s hardly a surprise. This is, of course, by design. The Powell Fed believes in transparency and no … Read more

Insider Buying Week 2-17-23

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When I started developing the Insiders Fund’s strategy in 2001, I knew I would miss out on some of the all-time greatest investments since founders of disruptive companies are loaded to the gills with their own company’s stock and don’t need to buy more of it. That was all right with me. I was willing to miss the potential home runs if by avoiding companies without insiders buying, I could avoid the scams, frauds, and charlatans that populate the financial world.  Generally, crooks and cons don’t buy their own stock, but there are exceptions to that as well.  Insiders may … Read more

‘t Repeat Itself, It Rhymes- Skating Close to the Edge

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After today’s CPI report, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the Fed will hike interest rates again in February.  The last time I remember such a rapid and persistent hike in interest rates by the Federal Reserve was in 1987.  According to Dr. Martin Feldstein and I quote from an academic journal article published shortly after the crash of 1987, “In January, long-term Treasury bonds had a yield of 7 1/4%, by April it was 8%, by August it was 8 1/4%, and by October it was more than 10%.  We all know what happened shortly thereafter. On October 19th, … Read more

Insider Buying Week 2-10-23

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When I started developing the Insiders Fund’s strategy in 2001, I knew I would miss out on some of the all-time greatest investments since founders of disruptive companies are loaded to the gills with their own company’s stock and don’t need to buy more of it. That was all right with me if could forgo this “pot of gold” and by doing so avoid the scams, frauds, and charlatans that populate the financial world.  This week we have the rare insider buy at a potential pot of gold, Vicarious Surgical, a true med tech disruptor.   Name: John Morici Position: … Read more

Hook Up on Tinder

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Since dating can be stressful, there is the possibility of humor to try to reduce tensions. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rosenfeld found that heterosexual couples are more likely to meet a romantic partner online than through personal contacts and connections. Since 1940, traditional ways of meeting partners – through family, in church and in the neighborhood – have all been in decline, Rosenfeld said. The company has said that this app is single, progressive and specially designed for the Gen Z market. So it’s taken that pressure off, this has … Read more

Stock market Pundit Mike Wilson gets Egged- Insider Buying Week Ending 2-3-23

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Morgan Stanley’s head of equity strategist Mike Lee stood out from the herd last year calling the market sell-off in 2022. Not only did he get it right, but he also stuck with his guns and didn’t back down during the many gut-wrenching bear market rallies last year.  He’s been bearish since the market rally last Fall and has doubled down on what is turning out to be one of the most embarrassingly bad and brazen market calls I’ve heard in some time. He’s not alone, though. Almost every pundit I read or listen to, says the same thing. Don’t … Read more

Animal Spirits and the Doomsday Clock are on a Collision Course-Insider Buying Week 1-27-23

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Not one of the many podcasts and pundits I listen to predicted a rally of 16% magnitude since the October lows. The January rally to date has been raw animal spirts. Obviously, this can’t keep going with the Fed dangling 5% risk-free returns out there.   Insider buying is incredibly scarce, even considering the seasonal effects of quarterly earnings blackouts.  This is what interested me last week in the thinly populated world of insider buying. The most exciting event is the new bubble forming around AI, capped off by Microsoft’s $10 billion in investment in OpenAi’s and  their overnight ubiquitous quantum … Read more

Is Rivian $RIVN a Good Buy? They make 10,000 cars a month like Tesla $TSLA did in 2015

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Dir Flatley bought 40,000 shares of Rivian back last May at $29.31 per share. The CEO Robert Scaringe did the same, buying 41,000 shares at $25.78. Today it closed up 11.8% at $18.15. Rivian has a market cap of $14.9 billion dollars, but it only has an enterprise value of around $3.4 Billion when you factor in the cash on hand. Rivian announced it produced 10,020 vehicles in Q4. Tesla achieved that in the 1st quarter of 2015.  Unlike Tesla,  Rivian has a wildly popular EV pickup ready now.  How long it takes to get one and the delivery price … Read more

Getting the big things right-Insider Buying Week 1-20-23

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Following insider behavior closely was not a very successful strategy last year. They got a lot of things wrong.  Not too surprising when you look closely at it. Insiders may know their companies far better than anyone else, but their macro crystal ball might not be better than yours or mine.  Last year had two black swan events, a proxy war between the West and Russia over the invasion of Ukraine and rapidly rising interest rates.  The investment strategy that shined last year was global macro. After many years of relative underperformance global macro rose to the top.  Getting these … Read more

Insiders Boycott Record S&P 500 Run

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Insiders have for the most part boycotted this ~14% S&P bull run from the October lows to this January’s 4% advance MTD. There were hardly any meaningful insider buys.  Yes, there were a few 10% holder purchases, but these are mostly hedge funds that have shown remarkably bad judgment.  For the most part, they look like they are just averaging down.   Name: Antonio Pineiro Position: SVP Chief Int’l Dev Ofc Transaction Date: 2023-01-13 Shares Bought: 3,000 Average Price Paid: $42.54 Cost: $127,632 Company: Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. (PLAY) Name: Ashley Zickefoose Position: SVP Chief Marketing Officer Transaction Date: … Read more

Insider Buying Week 1-6-23 When does the Bear Market End?

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All bear markets end with a crescendo of insider buying. There are a few ways to predict this pivotal event. The most reliable I have found, the ratio of insider buying to selling, can be found at popular subscription services such as secform4.com.  I’ve included a few charts from the site to help illustrate this phenomenon of insider buying foretelling the end of the bear market. I wouldn’t expect too much buying at the moment, though, as we’re deep in the throes of the 4th quarter earnings blackout when insiders are restricted from taking advantage of these reduced prices.   But … Read more

Notable CrowdStrike $CRWD Insider Buy Week 12-30-22

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Following insider behavior closely was an excellent way to avoid some of the technology investing disasters in 2022.  Darlings of the past decade—namely technology stocks—were hammered last year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq plunged into a bear market as the Federal Reserve decided it didn’t want its legacy to be runaway inflation.  Their record interest rate hikes crushed demand and continues to dampen interest for risk-sensitive assets. We’re now deep in the throes of the 4th quarter earnings blackout when insiders are restricted from taking advantage of these reduced prices.  Even if we weren’t, I don’t think there would be … Read more