Welcome to edition 502 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying increased last week with insiders purchasing $31.09 million of stock compared to $11.65 million in the week prior. Selling also increased with insiders selling $614.24 million of stock last week compared to $569.34 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 dropped to 19.75. In other words, insiders sold almost 20 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares favorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 48.89.
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. Anthem, Inc. (ANTM): $265.28
President and CEO Gail Boudreaux acquired 7,600 shares of this health insurer, paying $263.70 per share for a total amount of $2 million. Ms. Boudreaux increased her stake by 40.09% to 26,556 shares with this purchase.