BTW, you can find this information for a particular stock in the normal Yahoo quote information. For example, you can find the 100,000 share purchase by Petrohawk CEO Floyd Wilson at: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=HK (Yahoo Finance uses a surprisingly human readable link: q for quote it for Insider Transactions s for stock) Wilson also recently told TheStreet.com that Petrohawk will "ultimately be a takeover target". Clearly, he's betting over $1 million of his own money that the takeover will be more than the 11.49-11.69 that he paid. Two days later, another officer sold stock - a smaller amount equaling $147,000 - looks like enough to get a nice cash discount on a Ferrari...
What happened there is they both purchased a few days before they announced a new mining operation had begun. The stock went up 10% due to that announcement. (If there are shorts, it is because of the inherent difficulties and risks of mining in Africa.) By the way, remember that insiders are prohibited for selling shares less than 6 months after purchase. So, it is an indication that the insider believes that a) the shares are lower in price now than they will be in the future, and b) the shares will be higher 6 months from now (or more). Thus the GSS guys knew the announcement would raise the price, and believe that it would be higher than that price 6 months from now (or more). However, remember that both GSS and HK have gone up since the insider purchases. We have no way of knowing whether they would have bought at current prices.
I have been pondering a little bit on looking for weak sectors in the INtermedate term that have been outstanding sectors over the long term(1+ yrs). Then looking for Insider buying on those sectors that have shown intermediate term weakness looking for a IT term BO. Since the insiders arent allowed to sell for 6+ months, i assume they think tehre will be a shift in the IT. Anyway, I like you # 1 filter for insider buying. Anybody else try seomthings similiar?
Insider buying alone is not enough for me to take the trade. Add a couple more parameters and this can be a money maker. So, let's exchange ideas on what those other parameters are and we can really make some moola with this system. TSAI 3 officers bought last week around the $30 level, stock's off it's high of 42 and just bounced off the bottom of 28. Here's a realtime insider buying monitor http://insider-monitor.com/index.html
I just use the concept to HELP find good medium term trades. It just identifies companies where people are buying, and I figure they wouldn't be buying large qtys if they didn't figure they were going to make money. I look for ones selling at under 3x book, and preferably under 2x book at entry, and with profit making potential at least within the year. I'm not saying its going to pay off in a week or even a month, but I'd bet that given a 6 month timeframe the odds are good, assuming you are wise enough to trade even reasonably.
Noted after hours news release, substantial insider selling, short ratio fairly high. My thought is shorts may be right. Any comments appreciated.