Insider Data - Week ending 02/27/2010

Interesting week with health care meetup and crisis returning to greece. The market certainly does not where it is going, and that is bad for individual investor because what they need is predictability and that is one thing not there in the market these days.

Top 10 of the week are shown below. FSLR insiders are cashing out some, although CEO bought over a million dollar worth of FSLR stock.



The sell to buy ratio was high but much better than the previous week. Over all, it seems like we are reaching a state of balance. Historically, insider sales have been 2 - 2.5 times the insider buys. So a 6 times the sell/buy ratio is unfavorable although not that bad.



REIT retail took the top spot and has been in top five for past few weeks. Is REIT real estate turning around or just a shuffling of portfolios? It could be a little bit of both. Independent oil & gas shows up again in the top list, probably because of the oil prices shoring up this week.



Good luck for the next week. It would be interesting to see what march madness brings to the markets.

Insider Data - Week ending 02/20/2010

This past week has been good for the markets. S&P 500 has been going up for past couple of weeks. It is a good thing for investors. Still markets are indecisive as ever. Volatility index is around 20, that tells a lot about the sentiment out there. Is the market in equilibrium? From insiders point of view, past week saw more selling than buying as we show in the sections below.


Top transactions for the week are shown in the table below. GY attracted lot of attention big money poured into the stock during the week. Amazon insiders are cashing out while the going is good not that there is any thing bad on the horizon. Just like a smart investor, it is prudent to diversify.



Interesting trend in the rolling averages table. There was an up tick in selling last week. AMZN and MSFT played a big part but that is expected time to time for big companies. Over all, I am still not losing hope that insiders are seeing great bargains.



Personal products have seen quite a bit of insider buying during the past couple of weeks and this industry has topped the list of insider buys. Seems like insiders are betting on consumers. Let us see if the consumers come around and how soon.



Health care would again take the center stage next week. Let us see what comes out of the President's effort that seems to be genuine and authentic. Good luck to all.

Insider Data - Week ending 02/13/2010

Another Interesting week. The tussle between bulls and bears continues and both are trying equally hard to outpace the other. S&P 500 gained for the week, albeit slightly. What does that tell us, same thing that is being told to us since past 8 to 12 weeks. The market is in balance and no side is able to push the other aside. It will probably continue for some time. Although the valentine's day weekend seems to have brought the consumer spirit back to the retailers. Will it last? Chinese are tightening their money supply, what are we doing?

The top transactions of the week are shown in the chart below. CHTT saw a big investment for Sanofi-Aventis. This big amount has tilted the sell/buy ratio in the favorable category again. It almost seems like a new measure of insider bullishness needs to be devised. Any suggestions? We are seeing selling by MSFT and GOOG executives which probably is an old news.



As mentioned earlier, the sell/buy ratio has turned favorable again. This is a good sign for investors.



Personal products has seen a big up tick, mainly because of CHTT buying. Specialty retail is on rise also for past several weeks. Information technology services is a new entrant this week.



Next week will be shortened due to President's day. May be it is good for the markets because over the weekend WSJ has reported the issues in Dubai CDS spreads again. That should get mitigated due to the fact that people got longer time to digest that news. Or may be not. We will find out Tuesday morning in US markets.

Insider Data - Week ending 02/06/2010

Another interesting week. The sentiment was negative for sure, but some corners of the market are still holding on and trying to milk the most they can. It certainly ain't the game of weak hearted or non-serious people. Yes, it is turning out to be a game rather than investment activity out there in the market.

There was some big insider sales during past week. GOOG is the one well known name that saw some of that and you will see more names in the next section. The point is, a few big sales have skewed the over all balance towards sell sentiment among the insiders. Let us see if more insiders cash in now that market in general is jittery. It will probably be the true test of the insider sentiment. Rolling sell/buy ratio is shown in the table below. You might notice that suddenly the 13 week rolling average has plunged compared to previous weeks. Its just a cycle thing, since the big sales during the week of 11/07/2009 have rolled out of the thirteen week cycle this week.



AVGO has seen lot of outflow from company insiders. Most of them are big institutional investors and might be timing their exit since the market seems directionless at least in the short term. Also GOOG and MSFT saw some insider sales. I think GOOG will see more sales based on announcements by Larry Page about reduction of his holdings in the company.



Specialty retail did well last week and so did the biotechnology. May be insiders are seeing some value in the these two industries. Other major industries with positive sentiment are shown in the table below.



Lets see what next week holds for people in the gambling pit that wall street seems like these days. Cheers.