Welcome to edition 474 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying was lackluster last week with insiders purchasing just $10.39 million of stock last week compared to $54.38 million in the week prior. This is the fourth week in a row we have seen a decline in insider buying and coincides with the earnings related quiet period. We should see a seasonal pick up in insider activity in August. Selling also decreased with insiders selling $450.43 million of stock last week compared to $613.73 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 went up to 43.36. In other words, insiders sold more than 43 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 11.29.
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. W&T Offshore, Inc. (WTI): $4.83
Chairman, CEO & President Tracy W. Krohn acquired 200,300 shares of this independent oil and natural gas producer, paying $4.63 per share for a total amount of $927,398. Mr. Krohn increased his stake by 0.44% to 46,212,598 shares with this purchase.