Welcome to edition 190 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying increased last week with insiders purchasing $151.76 million of their stock compared to $64.80 million in the week prior. Selling also increased with insiders selling $1.37 billion of stock last week compared to $876.61 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 decreased to 9.04. In other words, insiders sold more than 9 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares favorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 13.53. 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.
Insider Sell Buy Ratio February 7, 2014
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:
Insider buying made a comeback over the last three weeks and it was interesting to note the large number of purchases by insiders of regional banks. Two other insider purchases that did not make the list but are worth mentioning include a cluster purchase by insiders of ADT (ADT) following a decline in the stock last month and additional purchases of Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) by CEO and venture capitalist Lip Bu Tan.
1. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM): $56.62
Director James S. Crown acquired 500,000 shares of JP Morgan, paying $55.53 per share for a total amount of $27.76 million. These shares were purchased indirectly through various partnerships and by Mr. Crown’s spouse.
You can view the list of recent insider transactions for JPMorgan Chase & Co. here.
| P/E: 13.02 | Forward P/E: 8.92 | Industry P/E: N/A |
| P/S: 2.2 | Price/Book: 1.06 | EV/EBITDA: N/A |
| Market Cap: $213.01B | Avg. Daily Volume: 18,451,400 | 52 Week Range: $46.05 – $59.82 |
2. Opko Health, Inc. (OPK): $7.74
CEO & Chairman Phillip Frost M.D. acquired 586,800 shares of this medical devices and drug development company, paying $7.57 per share for a total amount of $4.44 million. These shares were purchased indirectly by Frost Gamma Investments Trust.
