The huge drop we saw in most markets earlier this week triggered a large number of insider purchases and it was interesting to watch both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq close in positive territory for the week. Growth stocks staged a big comeback and beaten down Chinese technology stocks saw their biggest one-day gains after the government seemed to soften its stance towards overseas listings and indicated its efforts to “rectify” technology companies would end soon.
The top 5 insider purchases listed in the post this week barely scratch the surface of the number of insider transactions we saw this week. We highlighted some of them including insider buying in the luxury real estate broker Douglas Elliman (NYSE:DOUG) and the coconut water company Vita Coco (NASDAQ:COCO), in three Twitter threads here, here and here. Douglas Elliman was spun out of the Vector Group (NYSE:VGR) at the end of last year and at one point last week, the stock was down more than 45% post spin-off.
Insider Transactions Twitter Threads
The largest purchase this week was by an independent director of construction management software company Procore Technologies (NYSE:PCOR). Will Griffith acquired nearly $60 million worth of stock indirectly through one of the ICONIQ funds. ICONIQ is a San Francisco-based private asset management company with $83.5 billion in assets under management (as of 12/31/2021). The firm provides wealth management services to high net worth clients such as Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Dorsey and Jeff Weiner. ICONIQ was founded by Divesh Makan, Michael Anders and Chad Boeding in 2011 and Will Griffith joined the firm in 2012. ICONIQ has been a 10% owner in various companies like Snowflake (SNOW), Fastly (FSLY), Datadog (DDOG) and Procore Technologies (PCOR). The company still has an 8% stake in SNOW and owns nearly a third of Procore Technologies. Given how much ICONIQ already holds of Procore, it is surprising to see them buy more on the open market.
Despite the rebound in Procore’s stock this week, it is still trading below where it went public at $67 per share in May 2021. Procore grew its fourth quarter 2021 revenue by 33% and for the full year 2021, it grew revenue by 29% to $515 million. For the full year 2022, the company expects a similar growth rate of between 28% and 29%. The growth story appears to be intact with Procore but like most SaaS companies, it is losing money on a GAAP basis. Free cash flow for 2021 was positive to the tune of $9 million and Q4 2021 free cash flow came in at $13 million. If the company manages to grow revenue by 29% this year, it is trading at a little over 12 times 2022 sales. Not exactly cheap even for a SaaS company growing its revenue by nearly 30% year-over-year but I will add the company to my “broken growth” watchlist, which was discussed in our January 2022 mid-month update and has now grown to over 40 companies.
Welcome to edition 611 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying decreased last week with insiders purchasing $189.49 million of stock compared to $198.06 million in the week prior. Selling also declined to $1.12 billion compared to $1.37 billion in the week prior.
Sell/Buy Ratio: The insider Sell/Buy ratio is calculated by dividing the total insider sales in a given week by total insider purchases that week. The adjusted ratio for last week dropped to 5.93. In other words, insiders sold almost 6 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week was favorable compared to the prior week when the ratio stood at 6.93.
Notable Insider Buys:
1. Procore Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:PCOR): $61.57
Director William J.G. Griffith acquired 1,173,958 shares of this cloud-based construction management platform, paying $50.88 per share for a total amount of $59.73 million. These shares were purchased indirectly by ICONIQ Strategic Partners VI, L.P.
P/E: N/A Forward P/E: -106.16 Industry P/E: 57.84 P/S: 16.16 Price/Book: 6.94 EV/EBITDA: -29.43 Market Cap: $8.32B Avg. Daily Volume: 1,041,127 52 Week Range: $48.5 – $108.75
2. DocuSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:DOCU): $95.51
President and CEO Daniel D. Springer acquired 66,882 shares of this e-signature solution provider, paying $74.76 per share for a total amount of $4.99 million. These shares were purchased indirectly through a trust.
P/E: N/A Forward P/E: 40.99 Industry P/E: 57.84 P/S: 8.97 Price/Book: 68.86 EV/EBITDA: 746.86 Market Cap: $18.9B Avg. Daily Volume: 5,471,759 52 Week Range: $71 – $314.76
3. TeraWulf Inc. (NASDAQ:WULF): $7.48
Chief Executive Officer Paul B. Prager acquired 496,447 shares of this digital asset technology company, paying $8.12 per share for a total amount of $4.03 million. These shares were purchased indirectly by Lucky Liefern LLC.
P/E: N/A Forward P/E: N/A Industry P/E: N/A P/S: N/A Price/Book: 15.68 EV/EBITDA: N/A Market Cap: $922.41M Avg. Daily Volume: 407,185 52 Week Range: $4.03 – $43.98
4. Coty Inc. (NYSE:COTY): $9.06
Shares of this cosmetics company were acquired by 2 insiders:
- Chief Executive Officer Sue Nabi acquired 304,786 shares, paying $8.29 per share for a total amount of $2.53 million. Ms. Nabi increased her stake by 3.05% to 10,304,786 shares with this purchase.
- Director Beatrice Ballini acquired 7,000 shares, paying $7.87 per share for a total amount of $55,090. These shares were purchased indirectly by THB s.r.l.
P/E: 106.59 Forward P/E: 23.23 Industry P/E: 31.32 P/S: 1.51 Price/Book: 2.19 EV/EBITDA: 14.56 Market Cap: $7.6B Avg. Daily Volume: 9,530,617 52 Week Range: $7.24 – $11.12
5. First Internet Bancorp (NASDAQ:INBK): $46.63
Chairman and CEO David B. Becker acquired 40,000 shares of this regional bank, paying $44.59 per share for a total amount of $1.78 million. Mr. Becker increased his stake by 11.61% to 384,499 shares with this purchase.
P/E: 9.67 Forward P/E: 7.73 Industry P/E: 9.92 P/S: 3.81 Price/Book: 1.2 EV/EBITDA: N/A Market Cap: $454.85M Avg. Daily Volume: 49,356 52 Week Range: $28.05 – $53.56
Notable Insider Sales:
1. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG): $2,736.03
Director Lawrence Page sold 55,556 shares of Alphabet for $2,652.93, generating $147.39 million from the sale.
P/E: 24.39 Forward P/E: 20.11 Industry P/E: 23.04 P/S: 7 Price/Book: 7.2 EV/EBITDA: 18.62 Market Cap: $1.8T Avg. Daily Volume: 1,542,080 52 Week Range: $2010.73 – $3042
2. Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB): $167
Shares of Airbnb were sold by 2 insiders:
- Chairman – Samara & Airbnb.org Joseph Gebbia sold 300,000 shares for $139.72, generating $41.92 million from the sale. These shares were sold indirectly by a trust.
- Director Belinda J. Johnson sold 20,000 shares for $145.00, generating $2.9 million from the sale.
P/E: N/A Forward P/E: 81.86 Industry P/E: 4,375.91 P/S: 17.92 Price/Book: 22.15 EV/EBITDA: 187.65 Market Cap: $107.36B Avg. Daily Volume: 6,184,545 52 Week Range: $129.71 – $212.584
3. Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG): $2,186.31
Shares of this travel company were sold by 3 insiders:
- Executive VP, General Counsel Peter J. Millones sold 6,068 shares for $2,042.26, generating $12.39 million from the sale.
- CEO and President Glenn D. Fogel sold 5,339 shares for $2,072.92, generating $11.07 million from the sale.
- Chief Financial Officer David I. Goulden sold 183 shares for $2,032.72, generating $371,988 from the sale.
P/E: 77.61 Forward P/E: 17.93 Industry P/E: 4,375.91 P/S: 8.16 Price/Book: 14.53 EV/EBITDA: 29.24 Market Cap: $89.39B Avg. Daily Volume: 463,579 52 Week Range: $1796.45 – $2715.66
4. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW): $577.02
Chief Executive Officer Nikesh Arora sold 31,500 shares of this cybersecurity platform for $557.18, generating $17.55 million from the sale.
P/E: N/A Forward P/E: 63.76 Industry P/E: 57.84 P/S: 11.7 Price/Book: 482.46 EV/EBITDA: -862.51 Market Cap: $56.83B Avg. Daily Volume: 1,686,817 52 Week Range: $311.72 – $598.96
5. Southern Copper Corporation (NYSE:SCCO): $74.31
Chairman of the Board German Larrea Velasco sold 200,000 shares of this copper mining company for $74.94, generating $14.99 million from the sale.
P/E: 16.93 Forward P/E: 17.04 Industry P/E: N/A P/S: 5.52 Price/Book: 7.05 EV/EBITDA: 8.81 Market Cap: $60.38B Avg. Daily Volume: 1,136,082 52 Week Range: $54.92 – $83.29
