Christmas and Hanukkah falling on the same day can be seen as a fleeting symbol of unity and peace—or simply a coincidence between the Gregorian and lunar calendars.
Name: John W Childs
Position: Director
Transaction Date: 2024-12-30 Shares Bought: 29,000 Average Price Paid: $35.94 Cost: $1,042,393
Company: Biohaven Ltd. (BHVN)
Biohaven is a biopharmaceutical firm dedicated to researching, developing, and commercializing life-changing therapies in critical therapeutic areas such as immunology, neuroscience, and oncology. The company is expanding its novel range of pharmaceuticals by leveraging proven drug development capabilities and numerous patented drug development platforms. The extensive clinical and preclinical programs include Kv7 ion channel modulation for epilepsy and mood disorders; extracellular protein degradation for immunological diseases; spinal muscular atrophy and obesity; and antibody recruitment.
Mr. John W. Childs is the chairman and partner of J.W. Childs Associates, L.P., a private equity business. He co-founded J.W. Childs Associates in 1995. Mr. Childs served as Senior Managing Director of the Thomas H. Lee Company from 1991 to 1995 before creating J.W. Childs Associates. In this role, he was responsible for originating, assessing, negotiating, and overseeing leveraged buyout transactions for the THL funds. He is the Chairman of Sunny Delight and a director at Kosta Browne, Esselte, Mattress Firm, WS Packaging, and SIMCOM. Before the transaction, he served as Chairman of the Board of CHG Healthcare Services. Mr. Childs holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Opinion:
Name: Alexander Merk
Position: COO
Transaction Date: 2025-01-03 Shares Bought: 30,825 Average Price Paid: $20.98 Cost: $646,684
Company: ASA Gold & Precious Metals Ltd (ASA)
ASA Gold and Precious Metals Limited is a publicly held investment manager. The firm invests in public equities markets around the globe. It primarily invests in equities of companies that explore, mine, or process gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, and other precious minerals. It also invests in exchange-traded funds. To build its portfolios, the business uses fundamental analysis and a bottom-up methodology. The company obtains external research to supplement its in-house research. The firm focuses on the metals and mining industries. This record reflects ASA Gold & Precious Metals Limited investing preferences and overall investment strategy. ASA Gold and Precious Metals Limited was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in Portland, Maine.
Axel Merk is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Merk Investments, which manages the Merk Funds. He earned a B.A. in Economics (magna cum laude) and an M.Sc. in Computer Science at Brown University.
Opinion:
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You can be an insider, too– by clicking 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.
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,
