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Insider Transactions" section in Barron's. I find it interesting, and I use it as a tool, not a major one, but just another item to hopefully give some indication of the current state of the market.

Below I am listing a summary of the last 7 weeks (June 20 through August 1):

Date...Total Purchases...Total Sales...Sales/Purch
6/20...$44 million.......$308 million....7........
6/27...$23 million.......$448 million...19........
7/4....$14 million.......$345 million...24........
7/11...$6 million........$299 million...50........
7/18...$24 million.......$359 million...15........
7/25...$16 million.......$247 million...15........
8/1....$19 million.......$348 million...18........

The limitations of this analysis... 1) it is only the 20 largest buys and the 20 largest sells, 2) it doesn't include all such transactions (for example, the footnote says that trades preceded by an option are not included), 3) there is an obvious bias toward the sell side (purchases will never be larger than sales). Nevertheless, in the way that the 30 Dow stocks say something about the direction of the entire universe of stocks, in that way these buys and sells give us some information. And in the case of these 7 weeks, I conclude that nothing remarkable is happening right now, because the usual ratio of sells to buys, year-in, year-out, is about 20 to 1.

However, sometimes there are interesting little clues... over this 7-week period, the largest and the 3rd largest sales both involved Toll Brothers (TOL) namely $76,846,574 on 7/4, and $57,923,769 on 7/18. Housing topping out?

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>Insider Transactions" section in Barron's. I find it interesting, and I use it as a tool, not a major one, but just another item to hopefully give some indication of the current state of the market.
>Below I am listing a summary of the last 7 weeks (June 20 through August 1):
>Date...Total Purchases...Total Sales...Sales/Purch
>6/20...$44 million.......$308 million....7........
>6/27...$23 million.......$448 million...19........
>7/4....$14 million.......$345 million...24........
>7/11...$6 million........$299 million...50........
>7/18...$24 million.......$359 million...15........
>7/25...$16 million.......$247 million...15........
>8/1....$19 million.......$348 million...18........
>The limitations of this analysis... 1) it is only the 20 largest buys and the 20 largest sells, 2) it doesn't include all such transactions (for example, the footnote says that trades preceded by an option are not included), 3) there is an obvious bias toward the sell side (purchases will never be larger than sales). Nevertheless, in the way that the 30 Dow stocks say something about the direction of the entire universe of stocks, in that way these buys and sells give us some information. And in the case of these 7 weeks, I conclude that nothing remarkable is happening right now, because the usual ratio of sells to buys, year-in, year-out, is about 20 to 1.
>However, sometimes there are interesting little clues... over this 7-week period, the largest and the 3rd largest sales both involved Toll Brothers (TOL) namely $76,846,574 on 7/4, and $57,923,769 on 7/18. Housing topping out?

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Bildquelle: Martin Capital