When "Insider" Greed Is Good
Long/Short Equity, Special Situations, Growth, Growth At A Reasonable Price
Seeking Alpha Analyst Since 2007
He founded Invest2Success.com to empower independent and institutional investors traders to take control of their financial destiny by providing them education training mentorship and support for them to research analyze invest and trade in the markets successfully in the long-term.
As he says, "With knowledge, dated goals, a plan of action, then taking action, profitable investing and trading success will only be a matter of time."
Profit From Zacks Investment Research Earnings Estimates Revisions Free Trial of Zacks a leading investment research firm focusing on equities earnings estimates and stock analysis for the individual investor, including stock picks, stock screening, portfolio stock tracker and stock screeners. "Earnings estimate revisions are the most powerful force impacting stock prices" Zack Investment Research Founder Leonard Zacks, Ph.D. Mathematics M.I.T.
May 21, 2011 - When "Insider" Greed Is Good - By Zacks Investment Research
By: Tracey Ryniec
What do Michael Dell and Young Blake have in common?
Both are CEOs who recently bought shares of their own companies just before the share prices moved higher.
You have probably heard of Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Corporation. In the last 6 months he made a big statement by buying $250 million worth of shares in Dell, including a single $150 million transaction, even though he already owns a gazillion shares. Dell shares were up 5% within 5 days of that news.
But who is Young Blake?
He's the CEO of the lesser known firm, Comverge. Back in September 2010 he bought 5000 shares of COMV for $33,000. Within 2 weeks shares exploded higher by 18%.
Clearly it is beneficial for investors to follow insider buying activity. But digging below the surface to find the obscure purchases by folks like Young Blake is a worthwhile pursuit. Read on to learn how to do this on a regular basis.
Insider Buying Sends a Strong Signal
Why would these two CEOs spend their own hard earned cash on their own companies' stock when they already own a ton of shares already?
Greed.
Pure and simple.
The opportunity to make more money motivates people- even people who are already billionaires like Michael Dell.
If top insiders are buying, it's because they know something very good is going on at the company. Maybe it is a new product. Or contract. Or pending merger. Whatever the reason, they are very confident that shares will be on the rise. After all, who would buy more stock in a company if they knew it was sinking???
Buy When the Insiders Buy
When high level insiders buy, they are required to report the purchases to the SEC within 48 hours of the trade. The trade then becomes public information.
Hedge funds and other professional investors routinely use this information to get an edge on their trades.
For most of us, though, it's not easy to get access to the insider information. While the media will trumpet huge insider buys like Michael Dell's $150 million purchase, did you hear anything about Young Blake's $33,000 purchase?
The challenge is getting easy and reliable access to all the insider trades and then figuring out which ones to buy.
Where to Find the Insider Buys
Anyone can go on the SEC website and get the insider trading information, but it's time consuming to search by individual companies.
Some investment firms collect the insider buying data and can provide it to you as a weekly list. Have you ever seen one of those lists? The sheer number of companies can be overwhelming.
And then when you get the list, if there are 100 companies on it, how do you know which companies are the best to invest in?
We'll Give You the Trades
To solve this problem, our Zacks research team developed a strategy that monitors selected insider buying activity at companies that already show strong earnings momentum and attractive valuations. Tests show that this Insider Trader approach can triple the performance of even Zacks #1 Rank Strong Buy stocks. It even produced impressive profits during the heart of the bear market in 2008.
Today, you are welcome to share these insider stocks, but access must be limited. Entry will close to new investors May 30, and possibly sooner due to what I believe will be unusually high demand from the Zacks community.
Best, Tracey Ryniec
Tracey is Zacks' value strategist and is the Editor in Charge of our new Insider Trader.
Click here for a Free Trial of Zacks Premium
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.