Welcome to edition 115 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying increased slightly with insiders purchasing $57.63 million of their stock last week compared to $54.1 million in the week prior. Selling increased sharply with insiders selling $3.63 billion worth of stock last week compared to $1.1 billion in the week prior. The big jump in insider selling and hence the Sell/Buy ratio was primarily driven by large sales of Kinder Morgan (KMI) by Goldman Sachs and sales of Dunkin’ Brands (DNKN) by a group of private equity firms.
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 increased to 63.08. In other words, insiders sold more than 63 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 20.5. We are calculating an adjusted ratio by removing transactions by funds and companies and trying as best as possible only to retain information about insiders and 10% owners who are not funds or companies.
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. Dole Food Company Inc. (DOLE): $12.77
Chairman David H. Murdock acquired 959,759 shares of this fresh fruits and vegetables producer, paying $12.46 per share for a total amount of $11.96 million.