Global markets have continued to skid for the month of May. The MSCI All Country World Index is down 5.76% according to yahoo finance as of 5/29/19. With trade talks continuing to take center stage and spook the markets, stock investors are looking around to see whether or not fears are warranted.
One place we like to see what’s going on is with corporate insiders.
Looking at the sell/buy ratio for the past 8 weeks we can see if CEO’s are scooping up shares or running away from equity markets. More selling equals a high ratio and more buying means a lower ratio.
Source: Argus Research
As we see from the graph above from the Argus research team, Insiders have been switching to buy mode since March and are picking up that pace this month much like they did at the end of last year when markets took a dip.
Not that insiders know everything, but this gives us a decent indication that management still feels their companies are in good shape despite all of the bluster around trade.
Hopefully all this is over soon so equity markets can get back to business this year. We hope in the meantime this helps temper some worry around all the news.