Welcome to edition 272 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying declined sharply last week with insiders buying $39.54 million of stock compared to $170.5 million in the week prior. Selling also declined with insiders selling $508.05 million of stock last week compared to $899.89 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 increased to 12.85. In other words, insiders sold almost 13 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 5.28. Most of this decline in insider activity probably had to do with the start of a new quarter when insider activity is usually muted ahead of earnings releases. 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 September 4, 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. Dollar General Corporation (DG): $72.56

Shares of this discount store chain were acquired by 2 insiders:

  • Director Michael M. Calbert acquired 38,000 shares, paying $72.47 per share for a total amount of $2.75 million. Mr. Calbert increased his stake by 221.20% to 55,179 shares with this purchase.
  • Director William C. Rhodes III acquired 5,000 shares, paying $73.98 per share for a total amount of $369,897. These shares were purchased indirectly through a trust.
  • You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Dollar General Corporation here.

    P/E: 19.39 Forward P/E: 15.88 Industry P/E: 30.36 P/S: 1.08 Price/Book: 3.92 EV/EBITDA: 10.8 Market Cap: $21.38B Avg. Daily Volume: 2,683,620 52 Week Range: $57.09 – $81.42

    2. NuStar GP Holdings, LLC (NSH): $32.23

    Director William E. Greehey acquired 70,097 shares of this oil & gas pipelines company, paying $33.57 per share for a total amount of $2.35 million. Mr. Greehey increased his stake by 0.83% to 8,549,324 shares with this purchase.