Insider Trading Activity with Earnings on Deck: MCD, GE, SLB, HON, BHI

Insider trading activity is an underused and underreported indicator of a stock’s sentiment. After all, who better to judge a company than its own team of insiders, whom in many cases, are top-level management. While it’s always important to track this information – empirical studies have proven that individual investors can beat the market by 7% a year by following the best insiders – it’s an especially useful strategy to consider during earnings season.

This week has been a wild one for financial reporting, as Google’s snafu and Microsoft’s miss are certainly fresh in readers’ minds. As is the case with every story in the market, though, these troubles are short-lived, as investors have an entire new round of earnings to look forward to today. Without further ado, let’s take a quick look at some of the company’s expected to release quarterly results today and determine if they’ve experienced any insider trading activity in recent weeks.

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD)
1-month return: -0.24%
Insider buys: none
Insider sales: Jackson ($460K), Armario ($1.9M), Ozan ($470K)

General Electric Company (NYSE:GE)
1-month return: 2.56%
Insider buys: Brennan ($408K)
Insider sales: Krenicki ($3.8M)

Schlumberger Limited. (NYSE:SLB)
1-month return: -1.88%
Insider buys: none
Insider sales: Oestdahl ($1.2M)

Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON)
1-month return: 0.05%
Insider buys: none
Insider sales: Adams ($1.1M), Mikkilineni ($740K), Kramvis ($700K), Anderson ($2.1M), Fradin ($3.0M), Winters ($274K)

Baker Hughes Incorporated (NYSE:BHI)
1-month return: -3.69%
Insider buys: none
Insider sales: Charreton ($194K)

For a longer look at this indicator, visit Insider Monkey’s Insider Trading Education Center.