Insider Weekends – February 18, 2011

Welcome to edition thirty seven of Insider Weekends. Insider buying dropped last week with insiders purchasing $33.13 million of their stock when compared to $47.89 million in the week prior. Selling on the other hand increased with insiders selling $2.14 billion worth of stock when compared to $1.83 billion in the week prior.

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 increased to 64.53. In other words, insiders sold more than 64 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the week prior when the ratio stood at 38.24. 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.

Note: As mentioned in the first post in this series Introduction to Insider Weekends, certain industries have their preferred metrics such as same store sales for retailers, funds from operations (FFO) for REITs and revenue per available room (RevPAR) for hotels that provide a better basis for comparison than simple valuation metrics. However metrics like Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Enterprise Value/EBITDA included below should provide a good starting point for analyzing the majority of stocks.

Notable Insider Buys:

1. AOL, Inc. (AOL): $21.99

Shares of AOL were acquired by 2 insiders:

• Chairman and CEO Timothy M. Armstrong acquired 477,000 shares, paying $20.97 per share for a total amount of $10 million. Mr. Armstrong increased his stake by 119.40% to 876,511 shares with this purchase.
• Director Fredric G. Reynolds acquired 12,000 shares, paying $22.00 per share for a total amount of $264,000. Mr. Reynolds increased his stake by 27.82% to 55,129 shares with this purchase.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for AOL here.

2. PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust (PMT): $18.17

Shares of this REIT – Residential company were acquired by 4 insiders:

• Chairman and CEO Stanford L. Kurland acquired 50,000 shares, paying $18.00 per share for a total amount of $900,000. Mr. Kurland increased his stake by 25.47% to 246,290 shares with this purchase.
• Director Frank P. Willey acquired 15,000 shares, paying $18.00 per share for a total amount of $270,000. Mr. Willey increased his stake by 666.67% to 17,250 shares with this purchase.
• President and COO David Spector acquired 10,000 shares, paying $18.00 per share for a total amount of $180,000. Mr. Spector increased his stake by 16.38% to 71,061 shares with this purchase.
• Director Scott W. Carnahan acquired 5,000 shares, paying $17.97 per share for a total amount of $89,849. Mr. Carnahan increased his stake by 40.82% to 17,250 shares with this purchase.

Even though it was not indicated in the filings, these purchases appear to be related to a recent common stock offering by the company where it sold 9.5 million shares at $18/share to raise $163.8 million after expenses. The company raised this capital to purchase two portfolios of residential mortgages that they may close this month.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for PennyMac Mortgage here.

3. Chevron Corp. (CVX): $98.72

Director John G. Stumpf acquired 10,000 shares of this oil & gas company, paying $96.43 per share for a total amount of $964,336. These shares were acquired indirectly by the Stumpf Family Trust.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Chevron here.

4. Airgas Inc. (ARG): $64.08

Shares of this specialty gas company were acquired by 2 insiders:

• Director Ted B. Miller acquired 10,000 shares, paying $64.50 per share for a total amount of $645,000.
• Sr. VP & General Counsel Robert H. Young acquired 745 shares, paying $62.52 per share for a total amount of $46,577. Mr. Young increased his stake by 9.60% to 8,507 shares with this purchase.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Airgas here.

5. Flowers Foods, Inc. (FLO): $25.94

Director Benjamin H. Griswold acquired 25,000 shares of this bakery products company, paying $25.29 per share for a total amount of $632,300. Mr. Griswold increased his stake by 26.77% to 118,371 shares with this purchase.

This is the second week in a row Flowers Foods is making our list. Mr. Griswold also acquired 25,000 shares last week as discussed in the previous Insider Weekends article.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for FLO here.

You can view the full list of purchases from this Insider Buying page.

Notable Insider Sales:

1. Molycorp, Inc. (MCP): $44.63

Shares of this rare earths company were sold by 5 insiders:

• Director Ross R. Bhappu sold 6,976,383 shares for $50.00, generating $348,819,150 from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly through various funds.
• Director Mark Kristoff sold 2,459,810 shares for $50.00, generating $122,990,500 from the sale. 120,782 shares were sold directly and the rest were sold indirectly by TNA Moly Group LLC.
• President and CEO Mark A. Smith sold 72,749 shares for $50.00, generating $3,637,450 from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly by KMSMITH LLC. According to the filing, Kimberly Smith, the spouse of Mr. Smith, has sole voting and investment power with respect to the shares held by KMSMITH LLC.
• Director Jack Edward Thompson sold 35,883 shares for $50.00, generating $1,794,150 from the sale.
• Executive VP and CTO John L. Burba sold 33,225 shares for $50.00, generating $1,661,250 from the sale.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Molycorp here.

2. Whole Foods Market, Inc. (WFMI): $60.03

Shares of this grocery stores company were sold by 8 insiders:

• Director Jonathan D. Sokoloff sold 1,803,592 shares for $59.56, generating $107,420,206 from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly through various funds.
• Regional President William Paradise sold 18,700 shares for $60.09, generating $1,123,612 from the sale.
• Regional President Kenneth J. Meyer sold 15,400 shares for $60.00, generating $924,000 from the sale.
• Regional President David Lannon sold 12,000 shares for $60.51, generating $726,161 from the sale.
• EVP & Chief Financial Officer Glenda J. Flanagan sold 12,000 shares for $60.07, generating $720,827 from the sale.
• EVP Growth & Business Develop James P. Sud sold 10,000 shares for $60.50, generating $605,000 from the sale.
• Chief Executive Officer Walter E. Robb sold 7,500 shares for $59.43, generating $445,711 from the sale. 5,000 of these shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• Regional President Christina Minardi sold 3,900 shares for $59.56, generating $232,285 from the sale.

With the exception of Mr. Sokoloff and CEO Robb, all shares sold by others were as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Whole Foods here.

3. Perrigo Co. (PRGO): $75.7

Shares of this drug and nutritional products company were sold by 10 insiders:

• Director Moshe Arkin sold 287,651 shares for $75.13, generating $21,611,891 from the sale. 200,000 of these shares were sold indirectly by Nichsei Arkin Ltd.
• Director Michael J. Jandernoa sold 286,087 shares for $72.30, generating $20,684,862 from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly through trusts.
• EVP & GM Perrigo Israel Refael Lebel sold 18,569 shares for $71.89, generating $1,334,844 from the sale. 15,757 of these shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• Sr. VP Commercial Business Development Jeffrey Needham sold 6,893 shares for $73.16, generating $504,324 from the sale. 3,893 of these shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• Director Ran Gottfried sold 5,814 shares for $73.07, generating $424,844 from the sale. These shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• EVP Global Operations & Supply John T. Hendrickson sold 5,000 shares for $75.06, generating $375,306 from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly through a trust.
• Executive VP, General Counsel Todd W. Kingma sold 4,000 shares for $74.56, generating $298,241 from the sale.
• Director Herman Morris Jr. sold 3,942 shares for $73.47, generating $289,619 from the sale. These shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• Senior VP and CIO Thomas Farrington sold 3,391 shares for $71.77, generating $243,371 from the sale. These shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• Executive VP U.S. Generics Sharon Kochan sold 2,588 shares for $73.90, generating $191,253 from the sale. These shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.

Perrigo also made our list last week following a string of insider sales at the company.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Perrigo here.

4. Avago Technologies Limited (AVGO): $33.85

President and CEO Hock E. Tan sold 964,100 shares of this semiconductor company for $34.02, generating $32,798,699 from the sale. 864,100 of these shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Avago Technologies here.

5. OpenTable, Inc. (OPEN): $90.04

Shares of this online restaurant reservations company were sold by 5 insiders:

• Director Thomas Layton sold 290,500 shares for $94.17, generating $27,357,683 from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly through various trusts.
• President & CEO Jeffrey D. Jordan sold 22,000 shares for $92.93, generating $2,044,525 from the sale. 15,000 of these shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale. The rest were sold indirectly through various family trusts.
• Director Michelle A. Peluso sold 12,000 shares for $95.09, generating $1,141,100 from the sale. These shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.
• Director George Battle sold 2,000 shares for $93.81, generating $187,617 from the sale.
• Director Paul S. Pressler sold 2,000 shares for $92.55, generating $185,094 from the sale. These shares were sold as a result of exercising options immediately prior to the sale.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for OpenTable here.

Voluntary Disclosure: I have a short position in OpenTable.

You can view the full list of sales from this Insider Sales page.