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Welcome to edition 422 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying increased significantly last week with insiders purchasing $126.65 million of stock compared to $20.33 million in the week prior. Selling on the other hand, decreased with insiders selling $765.32 million of stock last week compared to $937.49 million in the week prior.
A majority of this jump in insider buying was related to the CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) purchasing nearly 1.7 million shares for $108.5 million in a private transaction from the Co-COO of the company. Oddly enough, the Co-COO then proceeded to buy 1.7 million shares on the same day for $110.75 million in a block trade from UBS securities.
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 significantly to 6.04. In other words, insiders sold more than 6 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares favorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 46.1.
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. U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Inc. (USX): $14.85
Executive Chairman Max L. Fuller acquired 55,000 shares of this trucking company, paying $14.65 per share for a total amount of $805,811. These shares were purchased indirectly by the Fuller Family Enterprises, LLC.