Every bear market since 2001 has only ended with a plethora of insider buying. I’m waiting, waiting, and waiting without any insider buying to speak of. There is not much selling either. This is a remarkably quiet period of time. I thought once this week of earnings was over, we would start to see some buyers come out of the woodworks. Nothing to speak of. A couple of directors from beaten down NSC stuck their toes in the water but other than that there is nothing to write about other than the VOID. No one is buying. Not many are even selling. It’s weird.
I’ve been tracking insiders for a long time, since 2001. This is the quietest period I’ve ever seen. I hesitate to speculate what that means but right now it only means one thing to me. Too uncertain to buy, not enough value yet, and too low to sell in mass.
Stay tuned, a market as volatile as this can present opportunities at any moment. Next week a full plate of earnings announcements will shed more light on the subject. Remember the news is paying attention to what insiders are saying but we are paying attention to what they are doing with their money, not just their mouth.
Follow us on Twitter for real-time commentary and insider buying alerts at https://twitter.com/theinsidersfund
If you are a QUALIFIED INVESTOR and are interested in learning how you can be part of the Insiders Fund, schedule some time with me here.
Name: Richard H. Anderson
Position: Director
Transaction Date: 24-10-2024 Shares Bought: 1,000 shares an Average Price Paid of $257.85 for Cost: $257,850
Name: Sameh Fahmy
Position: Director
Transaction Date: 24-10-2024 Shares Bought: 1,000 shares an Average Price Paid of $255.00 for Cost: $255,000
Company: Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC):
Norfolk Southern Corporation provides rail transportation services for raw materials, intermediate products, and finished goods across the United States. Its transported commodities include agricultural, forest, and consumer products such as soybeans, food oils, flour, sweeteners, ethanol, timber, wood pulp, beverages, and canned goods. The company also moves chemical products like sulfur, petroleum products, and chlorine, as well as transportation equipment and military supplies. Additionally, Norfolk Southern transports automotive products and coal. It supports the movement of international freight through various Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports and operates a large intermodal network.
Sameh Fahmy joined Norfolk Southern Corporation’s Board of Directors in May 2024. With over 30 years of experience in the railroad industry, he has held leadership roles at several major railroads. From 2019 to 2021, he served as Executive Vice President of Precision Scheduled Railroading at Kansas City Southern, where he led the development of operating procedures. Earlier in his career, Mr. Fahmy spent 23 years at Canadian National Railway Company, holding senior positions including Senior Vice President of Engineering, Mechanical, and Supply Management. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
Richard H. Anderson joined Norfolk Southern Corporation’s Board of Directors in May 2024. He brings over 20 years of executive leadership experience in the transportation sector, having served as CEO of Delta Air Lines from 2007 to 2016 and CEO of Amtrak from 2017 to 2020. Mr. Anderson earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Houston and a Juris Doctorate from the South Texas College of Law.
Opinion: Two relatively small open market purchase from relatively new directors.
According to the company’s corporate governance guidelines:
-
Board Members: Each director is expected to own shares of Norfolk Southern common stock equal in value to at least five times the annual board retainer so that makes this even less consequential. Yes its probably a good time to buy beaten down rail roads especially down 13% from the directors last purchase date-but it will require patience as Trump trade policy could have major impact on logistics.
Follow us on Twitter for real-time commentary and insider buying alerts at https://twitter.com/theinsidersfund
If you are a QUALIFIED INVESTOR and are interested in learning how you can be part of the Insiders Fund, schedule some time with me here.
This blog is solely for educational purposes and the author’s own amusement. IT IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. Think of the blog as part of my personal investment journal that I am willing to share with the DIY investor. There are also many parts that I am not willing to share if I think it could influence trading action or be detrimental to the Fund’s partners. We could be long, short, or have no position at all in any of the stocks mentioned and express no written or implied obligation to disclose any of that.
The Insiders Fund and its blogs and posts are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of the companies mentioned herein. All company names, logos, and trademarks belong to their respective owners. The use of company logos is solely for descriptive and illustrative purposes under fair use. Any information provided is based on publicly available data and should not be considered financial, investment, or legal advice. Readers should conduct their own research or consult with a professional before making any investment decisions.
Insiders sell the stock for many reasons, but they generally buy for just one – to make money. You’ve always heard the best information is inside information. Everyone with any stock market experience pays close attention to what insiders are doing. After all, who knows a business better than the people running it? Officers, directors, and 10% owners are required to inform the public through a Form 4 Filing of any transaction, buy, sell, exercise, or any other within 48 hours of doing so. This info is available for free from the SEC’s Web site, Edgar, although we subscribe to SECForm4 as they provide a way to manage and make sense of the vast realms of data. I’ve tried a lot of vendors. SECForm4 is one of the smaller ones, but I like supporting Frank. He is not arrogant. He’s helpful and has great prices. He also trades on his own data, so I like people that eat what they kill.
The bar is different from selling because the natural state of management is to be a seller. This is because most companies provide significant amounts of management compensation packages as stock and options. Therefore, we analyze unusual patterns with selling, such as insiders selling 25 percent or more of their holdings or multiple insiders selling near 52-week lows. Another red flag is large planned sale programs that start without warning. Unfortunately, the public information disclosure requirements about these programs, referred to as Rule 10b5-1, are horrendously poor. Also, planned sales that pop up out of nowhere are basically sales and are seeking cover under this corporate welfare loophole. I also generally ignore 10 percent shareholders as they tend to be OPM (other people’s money) and perhaps not the smart money on which we are trying to read the tea leaves. I say generally because some 10% shareholders are great investors. Think Warren Buffett and others
Of course, insiders can also be wrong about their Company’s prospects. Don’t let anyone fool you into believing they never make mistakes. Do your own analysis. They can easily be wrong, and in many cases, maybe most cases, have no more idea what the future may hold than you or me. In short, you can lose money following them. We have, and we curse aloud; what were they thinking!
We like Fly on the Wall for keeping up with what events might be happening, analysts’ comments, and whatever else could be moving the stock. Dow Jones news service is an essential tool, but many services pick up their feed like they do Bloomberg. For quick financial analysis, it’s hard to beat Old School Value.
A big callout to my assistant Ambreen who sets up this conversation by listing the notable buys that I’ve identified as soon as practically possible. She probes the 10k for a reasonable description of the business. I’ve found that to be the most accurate and succinct place to find out what a business actually does. When I have time, over the weekend, I’ll add some preliminary analysis to the Opinion at the end. Sometimes I won’t update this for a couple of weeks or more. A good way to use this blog is as I do, it’s a reference point and filing cabinet for various stocks with notable insider buying. It’s one of many tools I use. I regularly live on Chat GPT and Microsoft Copilot now. I find the footnotes research very helpful in eliminating errors from AI hallucinations.
The Insiders Fund is for qualified investors and by Prospectus only. Nothing herein should be construed otherwise. THE INSIDERS FUND prefers to invest in companies at or near prices that management has been willing to invest significant amounts of their own money in, but we have no requirement to do so. We also invest in many companies in anticipation of future insider buying or with the expectation that there is none at all.
You can be an insider, too– by clicking here
Prosperous Trading,
