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Welcome to edition 404 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying declined last week with insiders purchasing $203.25 million of stock compared to $420.25 million in the week prior. Selling also increased with insiders selling $2.65 billion of stock last week compared to $3.05 billion in the week prior. Once again a large part of the insider buying last week was driven by 10% owner Bill Gates adding to his stake in Ecolab (ECL) to the tune of $117 million indirectly through his investment company Cascade Investments, LLC.
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 went up to 13.02. In other words, insiders sold more than 13 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 7.25.
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. American Assets Trust, Inc. (AAT): $33.22
Chairman, CEO & President Ernest S. Rady acquired 259,583 shares of this diversified REIT, paying $32.95 per share for a total amount of $8.55 million. These shares were purchased indirectly through a trust.