Need To Know: The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB) Insiders Have Been Buying Shares
We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. The flip side of that is that there are more than a few examples of insiders dumping stock prior to a period of weak performance. So before you buy or sell The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.
What Is Insider Buying?
It’s quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. 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 Williams Companies
Williams Companies Insider Transactions Over The Last Year
Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Director Michael Creel for US$644k worth of shares, at about US$25.78 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at above the current price. Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. It’s not at all bad to see insiders buy shares at or above current prices.
In the last twelve months insiders purchased 45.00k shares for US$1.2m. On the other hand they divested 14.86k shares, for US$398k. In total, Williams Companies insiders bought more than they sold over the last year. Their average price was about US$25.87. This is nice to see since it implies that insiders might see value around current prices (around US$23.55). You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!
Williams Companies is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
Insiders at Williams Companies Have Bought Stock Recently
There has been significantly more insider buying, than selling, at Williams Companies, over the last three months. 5 insiders bought US$1.1m worth of shares. But we did see Kathleen Cooper sell shares worth US$250k. We think insiders may be optimistic about the future, since insiders have been net buyers of shares.
Insider Ownership
I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Insiders own 0.1% of Williams Companies shares, worth about US$30m. We’ve certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.
So What Do The Williams Companies Insider Transactions Indicate?
The recent insider purchases are heartening. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. Given that insiders also own a fair bit of Williams Companies we think they are probably pretty confident of a bright future. Of course, the future is what matters most. So if you are interested in Williams Companies, you should check out this free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
