Welcome to edition 435 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying more than doubled last week with insiders purchasing $45.76 million of stock compared to $22.32 million in the week prior. Selling on the other hand decreased significantly with insiders selling $257.89 million of stock last week compared to $411.84 million 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 purchases that week. The adjusted ratio for last week declined to 5.64. In other words, insiders sold almost 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 18.45.
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. Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc. (HY): $59.71
Chairman Alfred M. Rankin acquired 15,863 shares of this lift truck manufacturing company, paying $61.80 per share for a total amount of $980,284. These shares were purchased indirectly through various trusts and other entities.