Welcome to the eighth edition of Insider Weekends. Insider buying rebounded last week with insiders purchasing $13.42 million of their stock last week when compared to just $3.4 million in the week prior. Selling picked up pace with insiders selling $498.22 million worth of stock.
Sell/Buy Ratio:
The insider Sell/Buy ratio is calculated by dividing the total insider sales in a given week by total insider buying in that week. The adjusted ratio for last week dropped to 37.11. In other words, insiders sold almost 37 times as much stock as they purchased. A large part of this was once again driven by sales of AutoZone by famous hedge fund manager Edward (Eddie) Lampert and his fund ESL Partners. While we normally exclude fund sales, Mr. Lampert also happens to be a 10% owner and sold more than a third of these shares directly. Removing the AutoZone sales drops the ratio to 32.97.
The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares favorably with the week prior when the ratio stood at 98.64 (51.13 without the AutoZone sales). We are calculating an adjusted ratio by removing transactions by funds and companies and trying as best as possible only to retain information about insiders and 10% owners who are not funds or companies.
I received a question from a subscriber last week who wanted to know more about the freshness of the data we are presenting in these blog entries. Insider transaction filings usually come in until almost 10 PM EST every weekday. We collect this data all week long until 10 PM EST on Friday night. I then identify the notable buys and sells on Friday night and pass these on to Ann, who in turn collects the key statistics and other information on Saturday. I calculate the Sell/Buy ratio on Saturday, complete the blog entry and we publish on Sunday. So the data you receive on Sunday is fresh off the presses.