The term “insider trading” is usually associated with illegal conduct, but the term refers to both legal and illegal conduct. The legal kind of insider trading is when corporate insiders such as officers, directors and employees buy and sell securities in their own companies. As corporate insiders must report their trades to the SEC within a two-day period, outsiders can log into the regulator’s database and collect free insider trading data.
Nonetheless, the process of skimming through hundreds of thousands of trades and Form 4 filings annually seems quite cumbersome for retail investors. It would be better to let financial services websites such as Insider Monkey rummage through the abundance of Form 4 filings and present the most relevant data to investors. Our team pays particular attention to insider buying when examining insider trades, though spontaneous insider selling is not ignored by any means. As well-known investor Peter Lynch once said: “Insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.” Having this in mind, let’s have a look at a group of noteworthy insider transactions reported with the SEC on Thursday.
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Cluster of Insider Buying at Battered Retailer of Storage and Organization Products
As mentioned in our previous insider trading articles, clusters of insider buying represent the most bullish signals within the insider buying space. Hence, let’s have a quick look at a cluster of buying observed at Container Store Group Inc. (NYSE:TCS). To start with, Chief Executive Officer Melissa Reiff snapped up 18,750 shares on Thursday at $3.92 apiece, a purchase that boosted her stake to 489,096 shares. Board member Robert E. Jordan bought 10,000 shares on the same day at a weighted average price of $3.95 per share. Mr. Jordan currently owns a stake of 30,000 shares after the purchase. Jodi L. Taylor, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer, purchased 5,000 shares on Thursday at prices ranging from $3.93 to $3.94 per share, lifting her overall holding to 95,109 shares.
The shares of the specialty retailer of storage and organization products embarked on a disturbing downtrend in mid-December and got hammered in January due to weakness in the sector and analyst downgrades. As department-store chains started releasing disappointing holiday sales results in early-January, Container Store Group Inc. (NYSE:TCS)’s shares faced strong downward pressure. Several days ago, the retailer released its own financial results for the third quarter of its fiscal year 2016 ended December 31, which hit the company’s shares yet again. Container Store Group revealed that comparable store sales for the December quarter decreased by 3.9% year-over-year, as holiday department sales contributed significantly to the drop. The retailer’s shares are 33% in the red year-to-date. Royce & Associates, founded by Chuck Royce, owned 158,200 shares of Container Store Group Inc. (NYSE:TCS) at the end of September.
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The second page of this article discusses the fresh insider buying at two other companies.
