Market-Wide Insider Trading Activity

[Updated May 04, 2013.] In the week ended May 3, we recorded 899 open-market insider trades at 447 companies having a total value of $5.2 billion. Transaction dollar volume was 199.1% higher than the previous week and 88.7% higher when compared to insider trading activity a year ago. Purchases accounted for 14.8% of all open-market trades last week. Our insider sell-to-buy ratio, which excludes derivative conversions and certain other types of transactions, ended the week at 5.48, down from a previous reading of 9.35. On average, a sell-to-buy ratio below 4 is considered bullish, while readings above 7 are bearish.

For the 2nd consecutive week, activity was the most concentrated in the Financials sector, where 212 insiders filed trades having an aggregate market value of $238.5 million. Rounding out the top three sectors were Technology (163 trades for $300.2 million) and Industrials (146 trades for $2.6 billion). There was a large spike in activity in the Basic Materials sector, where the number of trades filed was up 240% on the previous week.

The largest open-market transaction of the week was in CHTR stock, where 3 insiders sold 21,192,120 shares for a total of $2 billion. The biggest buy last week was for 272,700 shares of TIF, worth $20 million.