Check your Dow Jones news feed after market today. Slew of insider sales in GS done in block at $150.02 on August 11th (the day after the Fed meeting). 7 insiders, including Blankfein, the President, and the CFO. Not a huge part of their holdings but a decent amount of stock. At a glance looks like around 350k shares. If you don't have a DJ feed you can find it here: http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-e...K=0000886982&type=&dateb=&owner=only&count=40 A cursory look back shows the last time a slew of insider sales occurred was January 25th. Short term move that followed: On February 4th, 8 trading days later, the low of the market was around 5% lower. Read what you will, if anything, into that.
Blankfein, Six Other Goldman Execs, Sell Some Shares Of Co DOW JONES NEWSWIRES DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Seven Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) executives, including Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, on Friday disclosed they exercised 363,993 options and sold the resulting shares for total proceeds of $24.4 million. The investment bank's executives disclosed they exercised and sold the shares in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which requires insiders to report transaction in their companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be reported within two business days of the transaction. All seven sold the shares at $150.02. Goldman's stock closed Friday at $148.08. Blankfein, who has served as CEO and chairman since 2006 and as a director since 2003, earned about $6.1 million in proceeds after paying the exercise price. He last sold Goldman shares in early 2007, earning $6.3 million at that time. President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, meanwhile, earned $4.9 million in proceeds. Cohn, who has served in those roles since April 2009, last sold Goldman shares in 2006, earning $2.7 million at the time. Last month, Goldman reported its second-quarter earnings slid 82% as the company was socked by its settlement with the SEC and the U.K.'s payroll tax, though adjusted results beat Wall Street's forecasts. -By John Kell, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2480; john.kell@dowjones.com Copyright (c) 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. .
Can you post a link please? Thanks. They basically sold nearly all of the stocl they were allowed to sell per their agreement with Warren B. if I have the numbers right. Looks like the sales were ballpark 5-7.5% of their holdings. The agreement with WB allows for Blankfein, Viniar, and Cohn to sell only up to 10% of their common holdings. If the sales were predetermined I am curious if the date was? Highly coincidental and so I doubt it. If you're familiar with the restricted stock programs that are out there to help execs legally do insider trading and this is what you refer to then that is total bull s@it. Basically what insiders do is create a program where all their sales are "pre-arranged" with one caveat: they can cancel in advance. So they cancel except when they want out and they sell_ big bad event_ stock dies_ but they are legally safe because it has the appearance of a pre-arranged sale. Something like that (I'm half asleep right now). These were not listed as pre-arranged and am curious for details regarding the comp agreement statement...
Check your feeds again. More insider selling reported tonight in Goldman Sachs throughout the C level. To reiterate, I ignore 99% of insider sales. Just not from within the vampire squid.