It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. On the other hand, we’d be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So before you buy or sell OZ Minerals Limited (ASX:OZL), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.
What Is Insider Buying?
Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, such insiders must disclose their trading activities, and not trade on inside information.
We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing. As Peter Lynch said, ‘insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.’
Check out our latest analysis for OZ Minerals
OZ Minerals Insider Transactions Over The Last Year
Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Peter Tomsett for AU$93k worth of shares, at about AU$9.34 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at around the current price. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company’s future. We generally consider it a positive if insiders have been buying on market, even if the share price has increased a bit since then.
Happily, we note that in the last year insiders bought 22.90k shares for a total of AU$212k. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by OZ Minerals insiders. The average buy price was around AU$9.27. It’s great to see insiders putting their own cash into the company’s stock, albeit at below the recent share price (AU$9.48). You can see the insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!
If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.
Insider Ownership of OZ Minerals
Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Our data indicates that OZ Minerals insiders own about AU$12m worth of shares (which is 0.4% of the company). Overall, this level of ownership isn’t that impressive, but it’s certainly better than nothing!