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I think people waste a lot of money betting on the significance of CEO sales.

cm2187 9y ago
Real estate company CEOs selling their own stock was a canary for the 2007 crisis. Insider selling their own stock is often a tell-tale sign of the top of the market.
- tw1010 9y ago
  Is it a canary or a noisy red flag (too noisy to be useful) if the signal has a really high false positive activation rate?
  - cm2187 9y ago
    A single insider is a noisy signal. A pattern of insiders is the red flag.
arcticfox 9y ago
Exactly, this is a logical move to rebalance his net worth outside of Intel. Otherwise he's got a whole lot of eggs (including his career) in one basket.
- prklmn 9y ago
  So he’s the CEO who knows the most intimate details about his company, including what the next few years hold. If as CEO he’s not confident enough to have a whole lot of eggs in the company that HE is running, why would anyone in their right mind want to have a single egg in this company?
  - jmeyer2k 9y ago
    I think it's very difficult to understand everything happening at every level in such a large company, even for the CEO. Many random things could happen that would cause the stock to drop not directly affected by the CEO.
  - thephyber 9y ago
    I don't follow this logic. Different investors have different risk appetites. If in your mind, the CEO sells one share of the company's stock and all of the investors should sell that stock, I think it would be a fantastic time to buy into the stock.
    - prklmn 9y ago
      I think holding the minimum amount of stock, as he is doing, is a far cry from selling one share. I understand you can’t buy stuff to live with stock, so he’ll need to sell some, but there’s a big difference between selling some and selling the maximum you’re allowed to at every opportunity.
      - justmightbecraz 9y ago
        Correct, if he needed some cash freed up immediately he should cash out shares of an investment fund, not dump shares of the company he's CEO of. And while the technical issue discussed elsewhere may play a role in people's minds, keep in mind that if it's only the CEO dumping stock he might be cashing out ahead of a #metoo
- vorotato 9y ago
  Also maybe he wants a new home.
ActsJuvenile 9y ago
I had to climb down Intel's management pecking tree for a technical issue, and it was eye opening. I passed through 6 layers of management to reach 1 engineer. Worst part of that was the management sucked up to me when an SVP was copied on the email, and low-key ignored me when she wasn't. This political cesspool cannot compete effectively against driven companies like NVidia. Intel seems to be the new Blackberry.
tdb7893 9y ago
Yeah, with how much people talk about diversity being important in investment I'm surprised selling stock is ever news. Also with all the regulation and scrutiny around them selling stocks it makes it even less likely that it actually means anything at all.

Real estate company CEOs selling their own stock was a canary for the 2007 crisis. Insider selling their own stock is often a tell-tale sign of the top of the market.

tw1010 9y ago
Is it a canary or a noisy red flag (too noisy to be useful) if the signal has a really high false positive activation rate?
- cm2187 9y ago
  A single insider is a noisy signal. A pattern of insiders is the red flag.

arcticfox 9y ago

Exactly, this is a logical move to rebalance his net worth outside of Intel. Otherwise he's got a whole lot of eggs (including his career) in one basket.

prklmn 9y ago
So he’s the CEO who knows the most intimate details about his company, including what the next few years hold. If as CEO he’s not confident enough to have a whole lot of eggs in the company that HE is running, why would anyone in their right mind want to have a single egg in this company?
- jmeyer2k 9y ago
  I think it's very difficult to understand everything happening at every level in such a large company, even for the CEO. Many random things could happen that would cause the stock to drop not directly affected by the CEO.
- thephyber 9y ago
  I don't follow this logic. Different investors have different risk appetites. If in your mind, the CEO sells one share of the company's stock and all of the investors should sell that stock, I think it would be a fantastic time to buy into the stock.
  - prklmn 9y ago
    I think holding the minimum amount of stock, as he is doing, is a far cry from selling one share. I understand you can’t buy stuff to live with stock, so he’ll need to sell some, but there’s a big difference between selling some and selling the maximum you’re allowed to at every opportunity.
    - justmightbecraz 9y ago
      Correct, if he needed some cash freed up immediately he should cash out shares of an investment fund, not dump shares of the company he's CEO of. And while the technical issue discussed elsewhere may play a role in people's minds, keep in mind that if it's only the CEO dumping stock he might be cashing out ahead of a #metoo
vorotato 9y ago
Also maybe he wants a new home.

ActsJuvenile 9y ago

I had to climb down Intel's management pecking tree for a technical issue, and it was eye opening. I passed through 6 layers of management to reach 1 engineer. Worst part of that was the management sucked up to me when an SVP was copied on the email, and low-key ignored me when she wasn't. This political cesspool cannot compete effectively against driven companies like NVidia. Intel seems to be the new Blackberry.

tdb7893 9y ago

Yeah, with how much people talk about diversity being important in investment I'm surprised selling stock is ever news. Also with all the regulation and scrutiny around them selling stocks it makes it even less likely that it actually means anything at all.