The Insider Report

Insider Buying 02-14-25 Buyers Coming Back as Blackout Abates and Uncertainty Rocks Stocks

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As Q4 earnings announcements start to wind down, we would expect to see a pickup in insider activity. We are seeing that, particularly in sectors that have sold off in anticipation of possible Trump regulatory changes that would make business more challenging and potentially less profitable. Of course, no one really knows for certain about any of this as Trump has shown a great propensity to say one thing and actually do another.  He may be bluffing, posturing or may change his mind. It’s very unpredictable but you have to assume when insiders buy into this, they are considering this, … Read more

Insider Buying Week 09-27-24 Is Inhibrx Biosciences another Biohaven? Insiders Seem to think so

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The bulletproof market stumbles on; not escalating war in the Middle East or a tumultuous Presidential election in the U.S. seems to faze it. Insiders are mainly sitting this one out, whether it’s the priciness of the market or the quarterly earnings blackout window; insiders are on the sidelines except when it comes to selling. They are hitting the bid like trout on a hatchery pond. Notable sales alone last week included Draft King, Banc of America (Berkshire unloading), Carvana, Seagate Technology, Toll Brothers, and that was just what was reported on Friday last week.  It’s hard to glean much … Read more

Insider Buying Week 06-28-24 The Emperor has no Clothes

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In addition to the lack of insider buying, there was a Presidential debate last week between a sitting President with a blank stare and an ex-President who has shown us he will stop at nothing to stay President. Somehow, the stock market doesn’t care. Name: Oscar Munoz Position: Director Transaction Date: 2023-06-21 Shares Bought: 2,051 Average Price Paid: $243.69 Cost: $499,806 Company: Salesforce Inc. (CRM) Salesforce, Inc. was established in 1999 and is based in San Francisco, California. Salesforce, Inc. develops Customer Relationship Management technology that connects businesses and customers globally. The company’s services include sales, which stores data; monitors … Read more

Fathers Day Insider Buying Week 06-14-24

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The post took a backseat to Father’s Day last week. Looking closely, you can see me with DJI FPV goggles next to my son at Tunnel Park. In the background, the sun sets over Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Considering the quarter end and recurring blackout period, there was an unusual amount of insider buying.  I will update the rest of the entries, so check back later in the week for more. You can be an insider, too– by clicking here   Name: Michael L Speiser Position: Director Transaction Date: 2023-06-07 Shares Bought: 76,200 Average Price Paid: $131.09 … Read more

Insider Buying Week 06-07-24 It Only Takes One or Two Good Ideas to Make your Portfolio

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It’s that familiar time of year again when insiders are blocked from transacting in their own stock. The posts will be light for the next few weeks as companies on the calendar year prepare to report Q2 earnings. The blackout period is also ripe for short sellers to make bear raids, knowing that a swarm of insider buying will not counter them. Nonetheless, it only takes one or two good investments to make your portfolio a winner. I’m highly confident we have that this week. Making money in the market is all about investors with conviction taking money from those … Read more

Insider Buying Week 05-17-24 Biotech Bonanza

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I was a little late in finishing the blog, as there were many more names to research. Most of the quarterly earnings are behind us, and it is heartening to see that insider buying has picked up a little. Speculative biotech is heating up.   Name: F Thomson Leighton Position: Chief Executive Officer Transaction Date: 2023-05-14 Shares Bought: 22,000 Average Price Paid: $92.68 Cost: $2,038,960 Company: Akamai Technologies Inc (AKAM) Akamai aims to empower and defend life online. Since 1998, Akamai has created and delivered technologies to help global businesses design, deliver, and protect their digital experiences on their widely … Read more

Insider Buying Week 05-10-24 The Earnings Blackout Curtain is Lifting

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The blog is a work in progress, like a public journal/filing system. Most of the quarterly earnings are behind us, and it is heartening to see that insider buying has picked up a little. Could there be some value in a market that feels scoured over, like an 80% off sale at Neiman Marcus? There were even some large insider buys in marquis names. Could there be some gems here?  This is my first crack at most of them. The Earnings Blackout Curtain is Lifting. You can be an insider, too– by clicking here   Name: Lester B Knight Position: … Read more

Insider Buying Week 04-26-24 In the Heart of 1st Quarter Earnings Blackout Darkness

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We are deep in the blackout period when most companies prohibit insiders from trading in their stock prior to quarterly earnings. It’s been ugly for the bulls, but there might be some green shoots. You can be an insider, too– by clicking here Name: Henry A  Fernandez Position: Chairman and CEO Transaction Date: 2024-04-25 Shares Bought: 13,000 Average Price Paid: $465.92 Cost: $6,056,955 Company: MSCI Inc. (MSCI) Name: CD Baer Pettit Position: President & COO Transaction Date: 2024-04-25 Shares Bought: 7,500 Average Price Paid: $459.41 Cost: $3,445,575 Company: MSCI Inc. (MSCI) MSCI Inc. is a top provider of crucial decision-support … Read more

Insider Buying Week 04-19-24

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We are deep in the blackout period when most companies prohibit insiders from trading in their stock prior to quarterly earnings. It’s been ugly out there for the bulls. Name: Vincent P. DiFronzo Position: EVP,-Air Force & Comb Commands Transaction Date: 2024-04-12 Shares Bought: 795 Average Price Paid: $126.04 Cost: $100,202 Company: Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) Science Applications International Corporation offers technical, engineering, and enterprise information technology (IT) services primarily in the United States. The company’s offerings include IT modernization; digital engineering; artificial intelligence; weapon systems support, which designs, builds, modifies, integrates, and sustains weapon systems; and end-to-end services, … Read more

Insider Buying Week 04-12-24 and The Insiders Fund 1st Quarter Partner Letter

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We are deep in the blackout period when most companies prohibit insiders from trading in their stock prior to quarterly earnings. Nonetheless, that rarely stops insiders from finding ways to sell using the ubiquitous 10b 5-1 selling plan loophole that the SEC and corporate America arranged for themselves. There’s not much to write about this week on the corporate insider buying front, but we have a lot to say in The Insiders Fund 1st Quarter 2024 Partner letter on our website.  You can be an insider, too– by clicking here Follow us on Twitter for  insider buying alerts at https://twitter.com/theinsidersfund     … Read more

Insider Buying Week 04-06-24

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Something significant is happening when staid Dell Technologies is up 31% on its latest quarterly earnings. A massive uptick in capex spending is underway, directly attributable to the stampede to embrace AI. Name: Jeffrey A. Davis Position: Chief Financial Officer Transaction Date: 2024-04-01 Shares Bought: 1,800 Average Price Paid: $136.00 Cost: $244,794 Company: Dollar Tree Inc. (DLTR) Dollar Tree, Inc. operates retail discount stores. Dollar Tree and Family Dollar are the company’s two business segments. It runs stores under the Dollar Tree and Dollar Tree Canada brands, as well as distribution centers in the United States and Canada. The Family … Read more

Insider Buying Week 03-29-24 The Coming Wave changes Everything

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Something significant is happening when staid Dell Technologies is up 31% on its latest quarterly earnings. A massive uptick in capex spending is underway, directly attributable to the stampede to embrace AI.   After a year or more of belt-tightening in tech spending, that moment has arrived, almost all at once, when companies realize they have to invest in AI or be disrupted or obsoleted by a Chatbot, robot, or some version of machine learning. This is truly an “internet game-changing moment,” and the spending free-for-all has just begun.   The architect behind this 20-year evolution is NVidia, a handful of … Read more

Insider Buying Week 03-22-24 Let the Games Begin

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An arms race is just beginning, but it’s not the traditional weapons of war. Artificial intelligence is the most disruptive technology to come along since the Internet. Large language models like Open AI’s ChatGPT are the machine learning equivalent of the Internet browser. The full-fledged arms race is underway.   Name: Brent Windom Position: Director Transaction Date: 2024-03-19 Shares Bought: 2,617 Average Price Paid: $83.00 Cost: $217,211 Transaction Date: 2024-03-15 Shares Bought: 2,683 Average Price Paid: $80.57 Cost: $216,173 Company: Advance Auto Parts Inc (AAP) Advanced Auto Parts, Inc. was formed in 1929 and is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. … Read more

The Curious Case of Insiders Buying Alteryx AYX for $.09 cts Arbitrage Premium

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The sale is all cash for $48.25, yet insiders are buying it for as high as $48.16 Early on December 18, 2023, the Special Committee met, with Alteryx management and representatives of each of Wilson Sonsini and Qatalyst Partners in attendance. The representatives of Wilson Sonsini reviewed the final terms of the merger agreement, the voting agreement and the other related transaction documents. The representatives of Qatalyst Partners confirmed that Qatalyst Partners was prepared to deliver a written opinion that the per share price was fair, from a financial point of view, to the Alteryx stockholders, if and when requested by … Read more

Insider Buying Week 03-08-24 FOMO or FEAR?

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I’ve been struggling to explain the speculative frenzy I sense in the markets. Stocks routinely go up and down 20% on earnings or even something as trivial as an analyst upgrade or downgrade yet the underlying market seems calm, benign even. The VIX, which is the current mathematic model for measuring short-term volatility, steadily trends lower. The VIX is a measure of the volatility of the S&P 500, and by now, everyone understands that the capitalization-weighted nature of that index dominates the recent stock market performance. The popular but obsolete already term ‘Magnificent 7’ refers to a handful of mega … Read more

Insider Purchases Last Week. Nvidia Ignites Massive CAPEX Expansion

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Something significant is happening when staid Dell Technologies is up 31% on its latest quarterly earnings. A giant uptick in capex spending is underway, and it is directly attributable to the stampede to embrace AI.   After a year or more of belt-tightening in tech spending, that moment has arrived, almost all at once, when companies realize they have to invest in AI or be disrupted or obsoleted by a Chatbot, robot, or some version of machine learning.  The architect behind this 20-year evolution is Nvdia. The lion’s share of the spend goes toward NVIDIA’s H100 or L40S GPUs — GPU Server For Deep Learning. … Read more

Insider Buying Week 02-23-24 Is Following Insider Buying Dead as a Strategy?

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Insider buying has been noticeably scarce in this bull leg of a market making all-time highs. The small amount of buying is not performing particularly well either.  You might find this news surprising from a hedge fund manager who has made a living reading these tea leaves for 23 years.  Take last Thursday, February 22nd, the morning after Nvidia reported blockbuster earnings.  I’m tracking about 400 stocks where insiders have purchased at least $200,000 of their company’s stock in the last year. This number has remained constant at 300-400 for the last 23 years. The average returns of those stocks … Read more

Insider Buying Week 02-16-24 Climbing the Wall of Worry

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  Name: Roger M. Singer Position: Director Transaction Date: 2024-02-12 Shares Bought: 500 Average Price Paid: $357.21 Cost: $178,605 Company: Everest Group Ltd. (EG) Name: John A Graf Position: Director Transaction Date: 2024-02-12 Shares Bought: 695 Average Price Paid: $356.75 Cost: $247,941 Company: Everest Group Ltd. (EG) Name: James Allan Williamson Position: EVP, Chief Operating Officer Transaction Date: 2024-02-09 Shares Bought: 700 Average Price Paid: $352.50 Cost: $246,750 Company: Everest Group Ltd. (EG) Name: Mike Karmilowicz Position: EVP, Pres/CEO Insurance Div Transaction Date: 2024-02-09 Shares Bought: 285 Average Price Paid: $352.39 Cost: $100,430 Company: Everest Group Ltd. (EG) Name: Juan … Read more

Insider Buying Week 02-09-24 Is it the Super Bowl or the Ripping AI Bandwagon?

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Finally, there is some work to do in analyzing insider buying. It’s not much, but it’s better than the last three weeks of nonexistent purchases.  Still, the lazy move, and perhaps the best move, is to get on the AI bandwagon with the companies that have proven they can monetize Now.   The popular wisdom is that the stock market looks forward six months or so, but the reality is quite different. Earnings season is the proof of it. Companies that miss revenues and earnings expectations are punished with swift declines in share value. Those that significantly surpass expectations experience hefty, … Read more

Another week of near-nonexistent insider buying, accompanied by many stocks making 52-week highs or all-time highs.

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Another week of near-nonexistent insider buying, accompanied by many stocks making 52-week highs or all-time highs.  Beat and raise quarters by Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon pushed the averages higher even with the Fed-dampening interest rate cut expectations and Friday’s blowout job numbers. The market reversed direction Friday and headed higher. Once the rash of normal insider selling after earnings subsides, the market seems higher to me. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and swims like a duck, it’s a bull market, especially if you own Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon.   Apparently, you don’t need insider participation for … Read more

Insider Buying Week 01-26-24 Goose Egg None Zappo Gone

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  In the twenty-two years that I have been assiduously noting and observing insider buying, I have never seen a two-week period where there was not one notable insider purchase.  I understand we are in the heart of the earnings season blackout, where insiders are routinely restricted from buying or selling their company’s stock, but this is ridiculous.  There are plenty of insiders who have found a way to unload their company’s stock, but not one single corporate officer or director has made a purchase of $200,000 or more.  I don’t pay much attention to hedge funds and 10% holders … Read more

”s NFL Playoffs.

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The only thing more uninspiring than last week’s insider purchases was this weekend’s NFL Playoffs. You can be an insider, too– by clicking here Name: Timothy C Wentworth Position: Chief Executive Officer Transaction Date: 2024-01-05 Shares Bought: 10,000 Average Price Paid: $24.22 Cost: $242,220 Company: Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (WBA) Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., a Delaware corporation founded in 2014, is a leading integrated healthcare, pharmacy, and retail company with a 170-year history of caring for consumers and patients. Walgreens Boots Alliance is the successor to Walgreens Company, an Illinois firm founded in 1909. Their main executive offices are at … Read more

Insider Buying Week 01-05-24 the Market is Waiting for Something

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The market is waiting for something. If interest rates are going down, the newest popular market obsession, when will they actually go down?  When will the Fed start the interest rate cuts, since everything seems to follow lock step with their interest rate policy?  Sure, rates have dropped some around the periphery.  30-year fixed mortgage rates have come down.  The national average is around 7%, and that’s a far cry from the 8% rates just a month ago, but we are talking drops around the margins. Compare this monthly mortgage rate on a $800,000 home today at $5322.  That same … Read more

Insider Buying Week 12-29-23 Here We go Again with Rampant Speculation

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Here we go again, two insider buys in small biotech names that rocketed 43% and 76% last week.  This didn’t happen in a vacuum. For the last two months or so,  the daily top 50 largest percentage gainers and losers are filled with small-cap and bulletin board names you’ve never heard of, ripping up and down 40%-150% in a shark-like blood-infested feeding frenzy. The list is composed mostly of obscure biotech stocks, pre-revenue or little revenue shells, SPACS, and cryptocurrency names, scams, and fantasies inspired by occasional real biotech transactions, the most notable being the 273% premium Sanofi paid for … Read more

‘s Retreat Continues to Spike the Market

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While some stocks like the Magnificent Seven have had a phenomenal comeback year, many, many companies are depressed in value. For example, many REITs have poor returns, some as a consequence of the sharp rise in interest rates. Agree Realty had a return of -15.34% year-to-date (YTD.) Paying particular attention to significant insider buying is one way to force that discipline of buying cheaply on yourself. When not painting the tape or participating in required corporate ownership requirements, insiders are historically value buyers. This week, we highlight what we think are notable buys. Although we pay attention to selling, we … Read more

Insider Buying Week 12-15-23 Glad to See some Big Names and Big Dollars Returning to the Insider Buying Game

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While some stocks like the Magnificent Seven have had a phenomenal comeback year, many, many companies are depressed in value. We have no shortage of compelling investment ideas, but getting people to invest when values are low is the opposite of human nature. Paying particular attention to significant insider buying is one way to force that discipline on yourself. When not painting the tape or participating in required corporate ownership requirements, insiders are historically value buyers.  This week, we highlight what we think are notable buys. Although we pay attention to selling, we don’t write about this far more nuanced … Read more

Insider Buying Week 12-01-23 AI will Improve everything but the Tesla pickup truck

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FOMO  (fear of missing out in a year when the S&P is up over 20%) is in full swing. One thing not making the headlines is the market is essentially where it was two years ago, with investors on a roller coaster ride.  AI will improve everything except the Tesla pickup, and gasoline is the cheapest at the pump in years, even as the world seems to be throwing in the towel on preventing climate change. All that ESG and green talk seems to be more expensive than anyone wants to pay for. The magnificent seven took the week off … Read more

Insider Buying Week 11-24-23 Are Investors the Turkey this Thanksgiving?

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Trying to read the tea leaves and glean some information from insider buying patterns is seldom obvious.  Directors are generally required to own a percentage of their board compensation in the company’s equity.  Generally is the right word because this is not a requirement at every company.  Investors viewing this information have to weigh it against past purchases, if any, actual board stock ownership requirements, the relative size of the purchase, and, of course, the recent price history.  Are they buying near the highs or, more typically, purchasing shares at recent lows in price? Insiders tend to be value buyers, … Read more

Insider Buying Week 11-17-23 Few Buyers Lots of Sellers

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   There are a few insider buys this week. As usual, there are a lot of sellers.    Name: Roland D Diggelmann Position: Director Transaction Date: 2023-11-13  Shares Bought: 315 Average Price Paid: $1,026.54 Cost: $323,360 Company: Mettler Toledo International Inc (MTD) Mettler Toledo International Inc. is a global leader in precision instrumentation and services. The company has strong leadership positions in most businesses and worldwide market leadership. The company is known as an innovator, and solutions are vital in key R&D, quality control, and manufacturing processes for customers in various industries, including life sciences, food, and chemicals. The sales … Read more

Insider Buying Week 11-10-23 Another Week of the Impossible Possibility

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Barron’s magazine cover read, “Clean Energy Stocks have collapsed,” but it’s not just clean energy.  It’s all energy.  The fossil fuel kind, traditional energy, continued its dismal fall performance as demand concerns and the fear of recession crushed the good and “bad” kinds of energy.  It seems impossible to have it both ways: green energy investments collapsing, and oil and gas stocks faltering, but that’s our world. Powell hints at interest rates stabilizing or even coming down, and the market takes off.  It didn’t take long for the drop in interest rate rates to collide with reality, the never-ending U.S. … Read more