Welcome to edition 269 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying declined last week with insiders buying $109.95 million of stock compared to $118.14 million in the week prior. Selling also decreased with insiders selling $999.89 million of stock last week compared to $2.25 billion 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 down to 9.09. 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 19.07. 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 August 14, 2015
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. Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD): $25.18
Shares of this department stores chain were acquired by 2 insiders:
- Chief Executive Officer Edward S. Lampert acquired 277,252 shares, paying $22.89 per share for a total amount of $6.35 million. Mr. Lampert increased his stake by 0.98% to 28,660,723 shares with this purchase.
- 10% Owner Bruce R. Berkowitz acquired 9,100 shares, paying $25.25 per share for a total amount of $229,775. According to the footnotes of this filing, these shares were acquired in a private fund managed indirectly by Mr. Berkowitz
This is the second week in a row that Sears made it into our top 5 insider purchases list.
You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Sears Holdings Corporation here.
| P/E: N/A | Forward P/E: N/A | Industry P/E: 20.22 |
| P/S: 0.09 | Price/Book: N/A | EV/EBITDA: -9.07 |
| Market Cap: $2.68B | Avg. Daily Volume: 1,263,040 | 52 Week Range: $19.08 – $48.25 |
2. MBIA Inc. (MBI): $6.81
Shares of this insurance company were acquired by 5 insiders:
- President & COO William C. Fallon acquired 150,000 shares, paying $6.30 per share for a total amount of $945,375. Mr. Fallon increased his stake by 17.26% to 1,019,081 shares with this purchase.
- President, CFO & CAO C. Edward Chaplin acquired 100,000 shares, paying $6.32 per share for a total amount of $632,060. Mr. Chaplin increased his stake by 11.67% to 956,720 shares with this purchase.
- Director Charles R. Rinehart acquired 50,000 shares, paying $6.33 per share for a total amount of $316,670. Mr. Rinehart increased his stake by 51.81% to 146,504 shares with this purchase.
- EVP & Chief Portfolio Officer Anthony McKiernan acquired 50,000 shares, paying $6.36 per share for a total amount of $317,845. Mr. McKiernan increased his stake by 9.00% to 605,492 shares with this purchase.
- EVP, Chief Legal Off. & Secy. Ram D. Wertheim acquired 20,000 shares, paying $6.33 per share for a total amount of $126,600. Mr. Wertheim increased his stake by 4.20% to 496,270 shares with this purchase.
