Insiders who purchased Wai Chun Group Holdings Limited (HKG:1013) shares in the past 12 months are unlikely to be deeply impacted by the stock's 12% decline over the past week. After taking the recent loss into consideration, the HK$7.39m worth of stock they bought is now worth HK$9.37m, indicating that their investment yielded a positive return.
While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares.
Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by insider Guanyu Chen for HK$5.9m worth of shares, at about HK$0.30 per share. Even though the purchase was made at a significantly lower price than the recent price (HK$0.36), we still think insider buying is a positive. While it does suggest insiders consider the stock undervalued at lower prices, this transaction doesn't tell us much about what they think of current prices.
Guanyu Chen bought a total of 25.66m shares over the year at an average price of HK$0.29. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!
View our latest analysis for Wai Chun Group Holdings
There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of undervalued small cap companies that insiders are buying.
The last three months saw significant insider selling at Wai Chun Group Holdings. Specifically, insider Guanyu Chen ditched HK$2.0m worth of shares in that time, and we didn't record any purchases whatsoever. In light of this it's hard to argue that all the insiders think that the shares are a bargain.
Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Wai Chun Group Holdings insiders own 82% of the company, currently worth about HK$79m based on the recent share price. Most shareholders would be happy to see this sort of insider ownership, since it suggests that management incentives are well aligned with other shareholders.
An insider hasn't bought Wai Chun Group Holdings stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. On the other hand, the insider transactions over the last year are encouraging. And insider ownership remains quite considerable. So the recent selling doesn't worry us. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Wai Chun Group Holdings. When we did our research, we found 5 warning signs for Wai Chun Group Holdings (3 are a bit concerning!) that we believe deserve your full attention.
Of course Wai Chun Group Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of high quality companies.
For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.