Massive Technology Trade Highlights Insider Selling

We cover insider selling every week at 24/7 Wall St., and we like to always remind our readers that just because an individual or 10% institutional owner is selling stock, that is no cause for immediate alarm. Many top executives, and even directors, are compensated with stock and often sell just to diversify or purchase other assets.

Here are the companies that reported notable insider selling this week.

Adobe Systems

A seller of Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) stepped up in a gigantic way this past week. Value Act Holdings sold a humongous 1,693,000 shares of the stock at prices that ranged from $82.06 to $82.45. The tally for this huge sell order was an incredible $139.2 million, and this is not the first time this has shown up on our screens. Adobe is a reported 6.5% of Value Act’s long portfolio.

Adobe Systems is a diversified software company worldwide. It operates in three segments: Digital Media, Digital Marketing and Print and Publishing. The shares were trading at $82.10 on Friday’s close.

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GameStop

A GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) director shrugged off the summertime lull. That director sold a block of 100,000 shares of the video gaming company’s stock at $46.84 per share. The total for the sale came to $4.7 million. The company has been the subject of takeover chatter, but insider selling kind of throws a damper on that speculation. The shares closed trading on Friday at $46.67.

Calavo Growers

This is another company that has seen consistent selling over the past month, and mostly by the same person. Lecil Cole, the chief executive of Calavo Growers Inc. (NASDAQ: CVGW), continues to sell stock at a furious pace. Last week he parted with another 41,016 shares of the stock at prices ranging from $52.03 to $52.07 apiece. That netted him about $2.1 million.

While consistent insider selling can be a warning flag, it should be noted that, according to Yahoo Finance, Cole is 75 years old. He may be selling to get estate affairs in order, and that would make perfect sense.

Calavo Growers markets and distributes avocados, prepared avocados and other perishable foods to food distributors, produce wholesalers, supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants worldwide. The stock ended the week at $52.73, so a bit of money was left on the table.

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While all in all the selling remained tepid this week, as we have discussed in the past, the insider windows for most corporations reporting earnings in July have been long since slammed shut. What we expect to happen is as the windows start to open up either late this month or in early August, we could see a torrent of insiders selling. That is not necessarily a negative, especially if the market continues to trend along near record highs