Welcome to edition 351 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying increased with insiders buying $93.85 million of stock compared to $57.94 million in the week prior. Selling also increased with insiders selling $2.89 billion of stock last week compared to $2.1 billion in the week prior. $885.75 million of those sales were by Snap (SNAP) insiders selling in the IPO.
Sell/Buy Ratio: The insider Sell/Buy ratio is calculated by dividing the total insider sales in a given week by total insider purchases that week. The adjusted ratio for last week dropped to 30.87. In other words, insiders sold almost 31 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares favorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 36.19.
Note: As mentioned in the first post in this series, 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. Navistar International Corporation (NAV): $26
10% Owner Carl C. Icahn acquired 423,404 shares of truck and diesel engine manufacturer, paying $25.28 per share for a total amount of $10.83 million. These shares were purchased indirectly by Icahn Partners LP.