Summary

Stocks continue to rise with broad sector participation, and 2024 is on track to be another very good year for equity investors. Meanwhile, corporate insiders remain on the sidelines, seemingly content to observe the action without any major participation. As new all-time highs are being printed on a regular basis, we can’t fault insiders for not jumping in to buy at the (latest) top, but are pleased that they have not been dumping shares in a manner that would suggest a correction is imminent. Digging into the latest weekly insider-sentiment data from Vickers Stock Research, we note eight-week sell/buy ratios that are uniformly neutral. The neutral range for the ratios runs from 2.00 to 6.00, and current eight-week numbers are 5.43 for the Total (all exchanges) ratio, 5.26 for the NYSE, and 5.74 for the Nasdaq. That said, as we detailed last week, the volume of Form 144 filings (indicating an intent to sell shares) was higher than normal in November — and now we do indeed see some increased insider selling, especially on the NYSE. With end-of-year ‘portfolio dressing’ in play, we are not overly alarmed. But we will watch this carefully — and should the trend evolve into a multi-week event, it may lead us to a more-defensive opinion. On a sector basis, insider buying was the greatest in the Energy sector over the last week, with shares valued at nearly $10 million bought — although buying activity was still outpaced by selli