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Insider Buying Week 10-13-23 The Black Swan has been Spotted

The market bounced off deeply sold, technically oversold conditions.  Now we’re in earnings season, and much if not everything, will hinge on that. Of course, a broadening war is on everyone’s mind. There’s no way the Fed will raise interest rates with all the geopolitical and domestic political angst. It remains to be seen if any insiders buy this market. I suspect some buying from deeply wounded sectors like utilities and REITs but not much else.

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Name: Vlad Coric
Position:
Chief Executive Officer
Transaction Date: 2023-10-05 Shares Bought: 454,545 Average Price Paid: $22.00 Cost: $9,999,990
Company: Biohaven Ltd. (BHVN)

Biohaven Ltd. is a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to studying, developing, and commercializing life-changing therapies for people suffering from debilitating neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases, particularly uncommon ones. The expert management team of the company has a track record of obtaining novel drug approvals for conditions such as migraine, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. They are developing therapies for diseases that have few or no treatment options, such as Kv7 ion channel modulation for epilepsy and neuronal hyperexcitability, glutamate modulation for OCD and Spinocerebellar Ataxia, myostatin inhibition for neuromuscular diseases, and brain-penetrant Tyrosine Kinase 2/Janus Kinase 1 inhibition for immune.  The company gathered a highly qualified team of senior leaders and neuroscience medication developers who combine a quick-thinking, results-driven biotech strategy with drug research and development capabilities.

Dr. Vlad Coric, MD, is the CEO and Director of Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd. and an Associate Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine. He now serves on the boards of Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd., the Lady of Mercy Academy, Pyramid Biosciences, Inc., and Vita Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Coric previously worked for Bristol Myers Squibb Co. as a Group Director-Global Clinical Research and the Connecticut Psychiatric Society as President. Wake Forest School of Medicine awarded him his Ph.D.

Opinion: Large and repeated insider buys reinforce the belief that the pipeline is golden and Pfizer just got one of the drugs, albeit a big one, when they paid $148.50 in cash for NurtecPfizer to commercialize NURTEC® ODT (rimegepant), an innovative compound for the prevention and acute treatment of migraine, a condition with high unmet need.

Name: Marcus Lemonis
Position: Chief Executive Officer
Transaction Date: 2023-10-06 Shares Bought: 42,200 Average Price Paid: $17.43 Cost: $735,546
Company: Overstock.Com Inc (OSTK)

Overstock.com sells a wide range of low-cost things, such as furniture, décor, area rugs, bedding and bath, home improvement, outdoor, and kitchen and dining items. The company provides products and services online via www.overstock.com, www.o.co, www.overstock.ca, and www.overstockgovernment.com, as well as via its mobile app. The company was founded in 1997 as a Utah limited liability company, reorganized as a C corporation in Utah in 1998, and reincorporated in Delaware in 2002. In March 1999, they created their first Website. Their objective is to provide furniture and home furnishings to help consumers “Making Dream Homes Come True,” particularly for their target customers—consumers who seek good value on quality, fashionable furniture and home furnishings at competitive prices and a simple shopping experience.

Lemonis currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of Camping World. He has extensive expertise in building and expanding businesses from the ground up. On CNBC’s The Profit, he is well-known for assisting small businesses in improving their people, procedures, and products for stability and profitability. On his popular TV show, The Renovator, Lemonis also assists clients in increasing the value and functionality of their homes. He has over 25 years of expertise in business development, corporate retail, and entrepreneurship.  Lemonis has built Camping World and Good Sam into the world’s largest RV and outdoor shop and affinity organization from the ground up. Many people know him as the “business turnaround king” and the star of CNBC’s prime-time reality show The Profit. Lemonis’ celebrity originates from his tenacity, shrewdness, and determination.

Opinion: Lemonis is smart, and I don’t think he’d be throwing away money even if he just joined the board of Overstock, which of course, is what has just happened. Normally I ignore new board members buying stock in the company they serve on as it’s perfunctory more often than not.

Name: Randall J Weisenburger
Position: Director
Transaction Date: 2023-10-06 Shares Bought: 350,000 Average Price Paid: $12.99 Cost: $4,544,785
Company: Carnival Corp (CCL)

Carnival Corporation was established in Panama in 1974, and Carnival plc in England & Wales in 2000. Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc operate a dual-listed company. Their respective businesses are combined through several contracts and provisions in Carnival Corporation’s Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws and Carnival PLC Articles of Association. The two firms operate as a single economic organization, with a single executive management team and identical Boards of Directors, but each retains its legal identity. Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc are publicly traded corporations with stock exchange listings and stockholders. With a portfolio of world-class cruise lines, they are the largest global cruise operator and one of the major leisure travel organizations. Their portfolio includes AIDA Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, P&O Cruises (Australia), P&O Cruises (UK), and Seabourn, with operations in North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia.

Randall J. Weisenburger served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Omnicom Group Inc., a multinational media, marketing, and corporate communications holding company, from 1998 to 2014. Mr. Weisenburger established Mile 26 Capital in 2015. Mr. Weisenburger is the Presiding Director and Senior Independent Director of Carnival Corporation, a cruise and vacation firm. He is also a director of Valero Energy Corporation, an oil and gas corporation, and Corsair Gaming Inc., a computer gaming company. Mr. Weisenburger earned an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, named Henry Ford Scholar, and a B.A. in Finance and Accounting from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).

Opinion: Cruising is the favorite hobby of middle-class aging citizens, which there are tons of now. I don’t think I’d join this cruise with the potential for conflict in the world and rising crude oil prices.


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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.  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.

This blog is solely for educational purposes and the author’s own amusement.  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 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.

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Prosperous Trading,

Harvey Sax
The Insiders Fund
Alpha Wealth Funds
Insomniac Hedge Fund Guy
hsax@alphawealthfunds.com

 

 

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