Top insider trades (Fri, Mar 20)

Connor’s Commentary

Sorry for the late email, I’ve been adding a bunch of extra data to the insider trade notes and was fixing a bunch of bugs this morning.

There were 232 new insider trades filed.

2 insider trades were flagged as High Signal (and one was added to the CEO Watcher Portfolio). CEO Watcher Premium subs can see those in the Trade Notes section of this email or the CEO Watcher Premium Dashboard that is linked in the Data Dump section.

As a reminder, if you upgrade to CEO Watcher Premium (link) and find that it isn’t for you, I’ll give you a refund.

• Chairman of the Board & CEO at INSPERITY, INC. $NSP purchased $4.69M (first-ever purchase). This increased their listed holdings by 15%. Dip Buy: the stock was down -40% in the previous 3 months. Reversal: they made 90 straight sales before this purchase. 3 other insiders also purchased the stock in the last 30 days.

• Director (BAKER G LEONARD JR) at CORCEPT THERAPEUTICS INC $CORT purchased $3.31M (largest purchase ever, out of 29). Dip Buy: the stock was down -59% in the previous 3 months. Their last purchase was 1737 days ago.

• Director (ALBER LAURA) at Salesforce, Inc. $CRM purchased $500.27K (first-ever purchase). This increased their listed holdings by 36%. Dip Buy: the stock was down -25% in the previous 3 months. 1 other insider also purchased the stock in the last 30 days.

• Director (Ragatz Erik D.) at Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. $GO purchased $486.38K (9th largest purchase, out of 11). Dip Buy: the stock was down -43% in the previous month. 4 other insiders also purchased the stock in the last 30 days.

• Director (TANNENBAUM LEONARD M) at Advanced Flower Capital Inc. $AFCG purchased $391.61K (37th largest purchase, out of 76). Dip Buy: the stock was down -53% in the previous year. This insider has purchased the stock 4 times in the last 30 days.

• Director (Bobbili Raja) at ContextLogic Holdings Inc. $LOGC purchased $249.37K (4th largest purchase, out of 4). 1 other insider also purchased the stock in the last 30 days.

• Chairman and CEO at FIRST CITIZENS BANCSHARES INC /DE/ $FCNCA purchased $151.90K (21st largest purchase, out of 45). This insider has purchased the stock 2 times in the last 30 days.

• VICE PRESIDENT FINANCE at UR-ENERGY INC $URG purchased $149.98K (2nd largest purchase, out of 2). This increased their listed holdings by 74%.

• Director (Stahlin Paul) at Northfield Bancorp, Inc. $NFBK purchased $131.90K (largest purchase ever, out of 7). This increased their listed holdings by 20%. Reversal: they made 1 straight sales before this purchase. Their last purchase was 2053 days ago.

• Director (Lawrence Bryan H.) at Ramaco Resources, Inc. $METC sold $11.36M (2nd largest sale, out of 36). Dip Sell: the stock was down -56% in the previous 6 months. This insider has sold the stock 2 times in the last 30 days.

• Director (AE RED HOLDINGS, LLC) at Redwire Corp $RDW sold $10.88M (9th largest sale, out of 35). Rip Sell: the stock was up 27% in the previous month. This insider has sold the stock 3 times in the last 30 days.

• Director (Quinn William J) at Permian Resources Corp $PR sold $10.04M (2nd largest sale, out of 2). Rip Sell: the stock was up 40% in the previous 3 months. 5 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• Chief Financial Officer at TERAWULF INC. $WULF sold $9.68M (first-ever sale). This decreased their listed holdings by -15%. Rip Sell: the stock was up 399% in the previous year.

• Executive Chair and CEO at Core Natural Resources, Inc. $CNR sold $4.12M (first-ever sale). 2 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• Director (SLTA IV (GP), L.L.C.) at Dell Technologies Inc. $DELL sold $3.97M (54th largest sale, out of 63). Rip Sell: the stock was up 31% in the previous month. 3 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• See Remarks at Travel & Leisure Co. $TNL sold $2.22M (2nd largest sale, out of 9). This decreased their listed holdings by -100%. 3 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• See "Remarks" at TEVA PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES LTD $TEVA sold $1.87M (4th largest sale, out of 8). This decreased their listed holdings by -21%. Rip Sell: the stock was up 61% in the previous 6 months. 8 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• Director (GOULD PAUL A) at Liberty Global Ltd. $LBTY sold $1.82M (5th largest sale, out of 25). This decreased their listed holdings by -24%. Their last sale was 366 days ago. This insider has sold the stock 2 times in the last 30 days.

• Director (WEST STEVEN E) at Diamondback Energy, Inc. $FANG sold $1.13M (3rd largest sale, out of 5). This decreased their listed holdings by -57%. Rip Sell: the stock was up 23% in the previous 3 months. Reversal: they made 1 straight purchases before this sale. Their last sale was 948 days ago. 9 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• CAO, Exec. VP, Assist. Sec. at Diamondback Energy, Inc. $FANG sold $950.00K (4th largest sale, out of 40). Rip Sell: the stock was up 23% in the previous 3 months. 9 other insiders also sold the stock in the last 30 days.

• and more…

Commentary

Another week in the red, which brings the CEO Watcher Portfolio to three red weeks in a row (a new record).

However, we are still beating the S&P by almost 9.5 points since we started the Portfolio at the beginning of November, so it’s not all bad.

I’m working on some research now to see whether we can identify types of insider sales that effectively predict negative forward returns. If we find something there, that will allow us to add a short leg to the book, which would help in situations like this.

The High Signal List held up a little better than the portfolio last week, just slightly underperforming the S&P.

The High Signal List was started on September 25th, and the average stock is outperforming the S&P by 4.6%.

As we’ve seen for the last few weeks, insider buying continues to climb as the market struggles. Insiders are stepping up and buying the dips at their companies.

However, the S&P continues to look worse every week. It’s very clearly in a downtrend.

The insider buying shows that many insiders remain very confident in their companies and believe they will eventually recover, but anything can happen in the short-term.

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