A version of my full empirical research on insider outperformance can be read here.
Insiders are the executive managers and directors who are in front of the financial and strategic decision making of their firm.
Insider trading activity is very informative to follow because their trades tell us something about the valuation of a stock as insiders know their business better than anyone else.
As a consequence of having performed months of empirical research on insider outperformance, having read all papers covering the topic and having written a paper myself, my knowledge on this topic is extensive. My experience tells me that there are several significant misunderstandings regarding insider informativeness. In this article, I want to discuss the biggest misunderstandings and provide some valuable information to take into account if you want to follow up insider trades for investment purposes.
Three DO's regarding insider trades
1. Take insider purchases in consideration to reduce the impact of human emotions
Every investor knows the feeling of hesitation regarding an investment decision as it can have a strong impact on your wealth. These emotions are particularly present when the stock makes a sudden steep drop or if the share price is depressed for a significant time period.
Due to this biased human behavior and a lack of knowledge about the firm, potential buyers oftentimes don't engage in strong buying opportunities and owners sell out of fear that they will lose even more money.
If you feel like you are beginning to trade based on emotions rather than facts, insider activity can help with making investment decisions. If you are hesitating about a stock, check out whether insiders were buying recently (I recommend the website Openinsider.com). As these insiders know perfectly how their company is doing, this can increase your knowledge about the company's prospects.
Let's clarify this with two investment cases: Williams Sonoma (WSM) and Amazon (AMZN).
Williams Sonoma is one which I use regularly to prove that sometimes insiders have much better information than the market. The kitchen-wares and home furnishings retailer went down by 58% in early March due to fear for the pandemic having a significant impact on its cash flows, similar to other retailers like Macy's (M), L Brands (LB) and Nordstrom (JWN). It's understandable that due to human emotions, potential investors didn't want to take the risks to jump in the stock and established investors even cut their losses. However, if these would have followed insider trades, they would have mentioned that two investors purchased heavily during the downturn, as they probably saw the disconnect between the stock movements and the underlying fundamentals of the company. What happened next? The stock surged 143% as WSM managed to blow away market consensus as the company its e-commerce business grew significantly, offsetting losses from their brick-and-mortar shops. Williams Sonama was provided as interesting pick to our followers back in early April.
(Source: author with Tradingview)
A second example is Amazon (AMZN). I read a lot of frustration from investors who were unhappy with the two-year flat stock performance of Amazon, underperforming other tech giants like Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT). Consequently, some sold their shares or didn't buy in. However, this weak performance was unjustified as Amazon has secular long-term growth drivers which were intact. A director of Amazon purchased approximately $400K worth of shares and the stock was called a favorite pick by me early April. The underperformance was unjustified indeed and the stock surged by 66% afterwards.
(Source: author with Tradingview)
2. Take insider purchasing activity more seriously when they trade in clusters
Many empirical papers have been written regarding the most informative insider trades. One of the most significant findings came from Alldredge et al. who found that clustered trades (multiple insiders buying close to each other) outperform solitary trades significantly. They found that the one-month abnormal return (return in excess of the market movement, taking into account the stock's risks) for clustered insider trades was 2.1% compared to 1.3% for solitary trades, a significant difference. This is intuitive because when many insiders buy their stock, the probability of undervaluation could be higher.
Thus, if you are taking into account insider purchases in your investing strategy (as I advise you to do), clustered purchases are more informative than solitary ones.
Let's provide some examples of well-known clustered purchases over the past months:
AbbVie (ABBV) lost 34% from its 2020 top during the March 2020 crash due to fear for the pandemic. However, pharmaceutical companies like AbbVie, Gilead (GILD) and Bristol Myers (BMY) face almost no impact from crises as their drugs are vital for many patients. As there was a significant disconnect between the share price and the fundamentals, two insiders bought significantly in March. After the March purchases, the stock outperformed the S&P 500 by 6% (+46% vs +40%). Investors who followed the clustered purchase thus would have benefited strongly.
(Source: Openinsiders.com)
A second stock, which we actually purchased at Insider Opportunities, is HP Inc (HPQ) after a director and the CEO purchased significant amounts of shares at the beginning of June. HP's printing division is showing weakness due to the work-from-home acceleration. However, the PC business is booming, which may be the reason why the insiders purchased. After the purchases, the stock outperformed the S&P 500 by 12% (+17.50% vs +5.50%).
(Source: Openinsiders.com)
A third, impressive case study is Overstock.com (OSTK), an e-commerce retailer primarily focused on furniture. The stock dropped unjustifiably by 60% as a consequence of fear for the impact of COVID-19. However, multiple insiders mentioned that sales were booming due to the pandemic and purchased there stock in anticipation on improved financials. In April, sales increased by more than 120%, which shows insiders' superior information compared to the market. Impressively, the insiders who purchased in March, are now at a return of more than 1000%!
(Source: Openinsiders.com)
3. Take insider purchasing activity more seriously in value stocks
Generally, there are two reasons why an insider on average outperforms the market. First, they are able to trade based on superior insider information (such as the insiders in Williams Sonoma and Overstock.com). Second, they are better value investors as are better in predicting when their stock is undervalued after weak recent performance.
One of the part of my own research included splitting all insider purchases between 2014 and 2018 (total of 3620) into five quintiles, ranked on several variables. Interestingly, I found that the biggest free cash flow yield portfolio, including the 20% highest free cash flow yield stocks, outperformed significantly with a 9.09% annual excess return vs. the S&P 500. Free cash flow yield is one of the factors included in our Insider Outperformance Formula, exclusive to Insider Opportunities members.
The free cash flow yield is the free cash flow of a firm divided by the market capitalization. High FCF yield stocks can be seen as value stocks as they are trading cheaply compared to the cash flows they generate. Thus, insider purchases are more informative to look at for investing in value stocks.
(Source: author; excess return= return in excess of the S&P500 for one year after the insider purchase)
Three Don'ts regarding insider trades
1. Don't give attention to insider sales, it doesn't tell us anything about returns.
The biggest misunderstanding regarding insider trades is the informativeness of insider sales. There's many empirical evidence, including the paper of Lakonishok et al., that contradicts the statement that insider sales are negative for the stock.
Insider sales have no relationship with future stock returns as there are many reasons to sell a stock such as wealth diversification, exercising granted stock options and freeing money to buy other things. Therefore, one should not look at insider sales at all.
Many insiders such as Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook (FB) and Tim Cook from Apple just sell shares regularly because they want to cash in some options. That doesn't tell us anything about the stock's valuation.
2. Don't deny low value purchases
The second biggest mistake is that investors believe that only the big insider purchases are informative. For example, they claim that a purchase of $20,000 of a particular insider is not informative as most of them have a net worth higher than $1 million. Well, won't you care about an investment of $2,000 having a net worth of $100,000? I would.
In reality, many empirical researchers have contradicted this statement by proving that the value purchased has no significant impact on the number of shares purchased. We exclude uninformative purchases of lower than $5.000 to pick out informative trades, but above this, I believe it's not interesting to discuss the value purchased given the empirical evidence. Thus, when looking at insider trades, don't just deny the lower value purchases.
3. Don't give attention to routine purchases when the insider purchases regularly
A highly-respected paper regarding insider informativeness is the paper of Cohen et Al. which divides the insider trades in routine and opportunistic trades.
Some insiders just purchase their stock regularly because they believe in their company without trying to buy solely at undervalued prices. These "routine" trades, defined as a trade which happened in the same month for at least three years, outperform much less compared to opportunistic trades.
In fact, Cohen et Al. found that opportunistic trades earn a significant abnormal return of 5.8% annually, while routine trades are not indicative for future returns. Thus, if you are looking at the insider purchases of a particular company, have a look at the regularity of them.
Conclusion
Insider information can be very valuable to include in your investment strategy. However, there's a wide divergence in performance between the hundreds of purchases each month. For example, routine trades are not informative, solitary trades are less informative, and insiders outperform particularly in value stocks, proven by empirical evidence. I suggest taking the tips provided in this article in consideration when you analyze insider trades in the future. It could improve your returns significantly.
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