The Insider Report

Insider Buying Week 8-5-22 CARVANA NIRVANA

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? The Insider Report hit the ball out of the park Friday, August 5th. We hope you were in the stands with us to watch Carvana CVNA soar out of the stadium, up 40%. We have blogged about it several times in the Insiders Report. Numerous short sellers were saying that CVNA was going to go bust, and it reportedly had a short ratio of 40%, one of the largest out there. That means 40% of the holders of Carvana were betting it would go down, not up. Today they felt a … Read more

”’re Working this Good

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I’ve bemoaned many a time in recent days about the dearth of insider buying. It’s a clear unambiguous end to any bear market of consequence when insiders back up the truck to buy their own company’s shares.  But that so rarely happens. It happened in the Fall of 2008-2009 and in March-May 2020, but most of the time, it’s not that way. No clear signals, just noise and maybe some good guessing from the chatter. Going back and rereading these blog posts about why I thought an insider was buying and how their transactions actually played out makes great stock … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-29-22

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. It’s nice being right. It’s better to make money at it. We did both last week. Over the last two weeks, I’ve mentioned the market seemed to be discounting bad news as many stocks stopped going down on lackluster earnings. Well, last week, it broke out into a full bull on rampage. The S&P 500 rose 4.08% on the week, and on Wednesday, when the Fed announced a 3/4/% interest rate hike, the NASDAQ  spiked up 4.1%, its biggest move since 2020. … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-22-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. I sound like a broken record. The market seems like it’s stabilizing, up over 2% last week.  Behind the scenes, the war in Europe is the 800-pound gorilla. Is the grain deal Turkey brokered in negotiation with Russia and Ukraine the beginning of the end? Interest rates have stopped rising despite all the tough talk from the Fed. We’ll see this week if they have the stomach for a full point increase in the  Fed’s funds rate or will they wimp … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-15-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The market seems like it’s stabilizing, although, behind the scenes, the war in Europe is the 800-pound gorilla threatening to take a turn for the worse. Interest rates have stopped rising in spite of all the tough talk from the Fed. At least the long part of the yield curve is stable, although many economists and market pundits say that’s because the curve is inverting, sending classic recessionary signals. There’s no question that consumers are slowing down their spending binge but … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-8-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The market retraced some of last months loss, the S&P 500 rallying a little over 2.6% in front of the wave of upcoming quarterly earnings reports. The Fed minutes from last month were released and the long end of the yield lost some of its recent rally. I still believe we’ve seen the bottom in long term bonds for the Summer as the specter of recession gets worse with plunging consumer confidence.  West Texas crude made an attempt at stabilizing around … Read more

Insider Buying Week 7-1-22 Few Buys but Some Important Ones

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. I thought we had put in some lows in some of the beaten-down tech names but I’m not sure about that after last week’s punishing finish.  Talk about a schizophrenic market. The bond market had a convincing rally with utilities leading the pack as the vibe has gone from a hot economy to one that may already be in recession according to chief market strategist from Charles Schwab, Liz Ann Sonders.   There were few insider trades to add to market confidence.  We’re … Read more

Insider Buying Week 6-24-22 The Market Comes Roaring Back as Powell gets a Mouthful

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The Fed has been bullied into raising interest rates into a weakening economy. Raising interest rates to bring down the price of oil or to untangle the supply chain disruptions is an act of lunacy.  The market is telling us that. Last week a bunch of senators and representatives gave the Fed Chairman a mouthful of that for the first time.   Now many congressional members are telling the Fed Chairman Powel that bleeding the patient to cure the disease is obsolete. … Read more

Insider Buying Week 6-10-22 The Mood Darkens as the Earnings Blackout Envelopes

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The S&P 500 lost 5% points in what was one of its most bruising outings this past week. It’s almost a foregone conclusion we will test the lows of 2022 and enter “bear market territory”.  At the cost of being labeled a Perma bull, I will proffer that that that is the time to add, rather than retreat. As painful as it may be, this is where insiders’ buying adds some confidence to a fragile and shaken market. Unfortunately, we are … Read more

Insider Buying Week 6-3-22 In Comes the Earnings Blackout Period

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. Only oil and gas stocks escaped the payback carnage on Friday.  We are getting closer and closer to the dreaded blackout period. A period where corporate insiders are prohibited from trading in their own stock. The one thing that buoys investor sentiment in a bear market is when insiders step up and purchase their own company’s stock. There will be less and less of this to report and short-sellers know this. They delight in capitulation and if there was ever a … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-26-22 Best Week Since November 2020

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The S&P 500 scorched the short-sellers, racking up the best performing since November 2020, up an astounding 6.19% for the week. So is this the all-clear sign?  We wrote last week a Temporary Truce in the Alpha War Zone that the insider buying sell ratio in the NASDAQ stocks looked like it had reached a short-term buy signal.  I hope you were able to take advantage of that. There will probably be a little carry through from such a big move … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-20-22 Trying to Go Up on a Down Escalator

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. I spent much of last weekend toiling over the Insiders Report.  Insider buying is picking up in the ruins of the NASDAQ but not enough to waive the all-clear flag that I described in the last post.  The  S&P 500 dipped into “bear” territory Friday only to stage a furious machine-driven short-covering rally that erased a 560 point decline in the last 30 minutes of the day.  Read on for the brave souls that keep trying to ride up the down … Read more

Insider Buying Week 5-13-22- Insiders are Putting their Toes into the Caldrum

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. Two things happened Thursday which may have put a temporary bottom in the market’s steady descent downward. I’m going to hazard a guess. More than likely it was the report that Fed Chairman Powell did an interview on NPR in which he all but promised two more 1/2 point interest rate hikes at each of the upcoming Federal Reserve meetings. The bond market took this news in stride and stocks held steady.  The second fulcrum point was the news that Finland … Read more

‘s Easy to Understand Why

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. The bear case continues to grow as interest rates resume their relentless rise. The war in Ukraine drags on with Russia pummeling Ukraine in a war Putin cannot afford to lose and cannot win.  The U.S and the West cannot afford to lose either as billions and prestige are at stake.  It’s a dangerous situation with an unpredictable outcome when neither party can afford to lose. China doubles down on its zero Covid policy threatening to drag its economy into a … Read more

Ugly Ugly and then some Ugly week 4-29-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. If you thought last week was ugly, this Friday took the cake. We’re now testing the lows set this year and if you’re not nervous about the market, you’re in denial. The S&P 500 Index slumped on Friday, capping its biggest monthly decline since March 2020. According to Bloomberg, the benchmark gauge closed down 3.6%. All 11 major industry groups declined, with the consumer discretionary, real estate, and information technology sectors leading losses. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index fell 4.5%, closing … Read more

Insider Buying Week 4-22-22 There was literally nowhere to hide

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll through the significant buys of the last year. It was an ugly two-day close to the week that marked 4 consecutive weeks of selling.  Friday’s 900-point Dow collapse was either a capitulation of sorts or the beginning of something more ominous. There was literally nowhere to hide.  Pretty much anything sold short worked as seen in this red, red heat map of the market. The narrative was hawkish Fed talk had finally pushed the market over the edge. There is another narrative that I prefer is that no one … Read more

CEO is on a buying spree

$RKT Can Lightening Strike Twice in the Same Spot? Insider Buying Week 4-15-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. This is the most meager display of insider buying I’ve ever seen.  Yea, yea it’s the earnings blackout but insiders have no trouble managing to sell during the blackout window using the 10B5-1 loopholes, they could find the motivation to buy if they had any.   Name: Peek Mark S Position: Director Transaction Date: 2022-04-12 Shares Bought: 30,000 Average Price Paid: $34.40 Cost: $1,032,000.00 Company: SentinelOne Inc. (S) SentinelOne, Inc. is a cybersecurity firm that was previously known as Sentinel Labs, Inc. … Read more

Insider Buying Week 4-8-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. Merger activity increased significantly last week with six new deals announced and eight deals completed. There were 17 deals announced in the month of March, with a total value of $64.55 billion. I read from more than one source, that over $1 Trillion of private equity money is waiting to be deployed. Five companies we’ve blogged about have already been bought out this year.  We are fully in the nether world of earnings blackout.  It’s difficult anytime to discern the mood of … Read more

Insider Buying Week 4-1-22 Beaten Down Biotech Enough is Enough

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year.   We are fully in the nether world of earnings blackout.  It’s difficult anytime to discern the mood of corporate America but the period thirty days prior to and one day after quarterly earnings release are deliberately void of any communication about the health of a public company’s business. It’s the blackout period. Not as sexy as a black hole but nonetheless filled with mischieve and potential danger. I’ve asked my friend Dan Taylor of Wharton Forensics Lab and Frank from SECForm4.com … Read more

Insider Buying Week 3-25-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year.   Normally we try to focus on insider buying which gives us a granular peek inside the corporate veil and thus some edge at this game.   We stay away from the global macro where we don’t have a perceived edge.  That’s foolhardy to do right now as we are witness to a titanic struggle between autocracy and democracy being waged on a global stage with generational economic implications. The market has acted like it didn’t have a care in the world with … Read more

Insider Buying Week 3-18-22 NASDAQ Makes the Biggest Weekly Gain in History

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. I wrote last week that “For many people, the obvious response is to buy nothing, do nothing until the bear market is over. We wish it was that easy as when some stocks have corrected as sharply as they have, down 50-70% in many cases. When they turn, the upswing will be so quick and significant, violent even that there is no way of getting back in anywhere near the bottom. Last week the S&P 500 stormed 5.8% higher and the average … Read more

Insider Buying Week 3-11-22

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Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys?  Scroll the significant buys of the last year. And what to do about the Russian Ukraine war. It will get worse and it will drag China into an ever-deepening conflict with the West and Democratic regimes. The declaration of mutual support that Russia and China published in a 5000-word memorandum entitled Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development was reminiscent of the Axis power alignment with Germany and Japan at the onset of WWII. If we’re headed to WWW3 is that a reason … Read more

More Insiders are Buying but the Selling is Relentless 3-4-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. All bear markets end in a crescendo, literally an explosion of insider buying.  I believe we are in a classic bear market.  The signposts are obvious.  Beat and raise quarters are met with yawns if not outright sell-offs. Good news is met with brief bouts of buying but soon dissipates into the underlying negative downward trend.  Of course, there are always stocks that work even in a bear market but it is much harder making money on the long side than it … Read more

Insider Buying week 02-25-22 Yes, there is now Blood on the Streets

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. Figuring out the next move in the market has moved into the realms of multidimensional chess playing with cross-currents upon cross-currents swirling below one another, colliding into one another. Just look at the Fed’s dilemma now trying to tighten monetary policy in the face of a potential global conflict.   Putin has unleashed his single-handed insane determination to change the world order. No one knows where this goes and how it ends. Ultimately this war could trump all news but for now, … Read more

Insider Buying week 02-18-22 Ukraine is thrown under the Bus

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. The war is on. Biden made that clear Friday after the close. What he made equally clear is that our allies are completely confused about what we would do beyond righteous indignation. We’ve got a lot of RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION to go around. In fact, I might have been dreaming but I swear I saw diplomats from the EU and the German federation of states wearing placards shoulder to shoulder that said Righteous Indignation- Nah  that was a dream If there was ever … Read more

Insider Buying week 02-11-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year.  The week started out with a strong rebound in Amazon’s stock that looked like it might actually be infectious for other injured tech and high flyers only to end the week in a sea of red that looked like the invasion of Ukraine had moved to the big board and NASDAQ.   The very powerful and scary Russian military machine encircling Ukraine unnerved most investors and there was a decided buyer’s boycott as Biden hinted that an invasion might happen while the Olympics … Read more

‘t In Yet

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year.  Last week was a predictable short-covering rally in the most savaged part of the market, high flying cloud stocks and a smattering of nonprofitable tech players. NASDAQ stocks shellacked the most typically and predictably bounced back  10-15%. But don’t kid yourself. This isn’t the real deal, at least not for most of the bag holders. Every market correction for the last 20 years or as long as we have data for ends and only ends with a tsunami of insider buying. Whether … Read more

Netflix Gets some Insider Love -Insider Buying week 01-28-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. Last week, I started the blog saying, “at some point making money begins to matter. I’ve long scoffed at relative value analysis as a way to cultivate bad habits.  It’s addictive and should be banned. Comparing companies by silly metrics as a multiple of sales versus a multiple of earnings seems insane yet the madness of crowd behavior is a well-documented phenomenon.  It’s called bubbles and we’ve been in one for quite some time.  I love bubble investing- just point me to … Read more

Bye Bye American Pie Insider Buying week 01-21-22

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. We’re in a vicious bear market the like of which harks back to the Dot.com bubble bursting for stocks with little or no earnings.  That’s most of the cloud stocks and pretty much all the speculative SPAC’s that are getting annihilated by the Great Unwind. The Indices mask the carnage that is happening below the surface. You don’t need to look to Ukraine for the bloodbath. It’s already well underway on the NASDAQ. There wasn’t much in the way of insider activity … Read more

Insider Buying week 01-14-22 Little Buying- Lots of Selling

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  Curious how well insiders are doing with their buys? Scroll the significant buys of the last year. Russia with 100,000 battle-hardened troops poised to invade Ukraine, the price of crude oil making new highs, and China banning all inbound flights from the U.S right before the Winter Games because of soaring Covid infections, the Fed stating unequivocally they would hike rates more aggressively if needed- and the market only down 2% for the month. Wow- that’s a strong stock market. For how long is anyone’s guess. The blackout period before earnings is always a time of little insider buying … Read more