Welcome to edition 543 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying declined significantly last week with insiders purchasing $49.91 million of stock compared to $102.19 million in the week prior. Selling also declined with insiders selling $3.08 billion of stock last week compared to $3.13 billion in the week prior. This decline in insider buying at a time when insiders are not in an earnings related quiet period is a little surprising and it comes against the backdrop of market weakness last week. With COVID-19 related cases and deaths spiking sharply across the United States and several countries in Europe, investor appetite for risk appears to be moderating.
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 61.7. In other words, insiders sold almost 62 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 30.62.
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. MultiPlan Corporation (MPLN): $7.56
Shares of this healthcare plans company were acquired by 2 insiders: