Over a tense weekend for the 25,000 employees of Lehman, praying for a rescue package, I spot further director selling at Hargreaves Lansdown (HL., 191p).

On September 9th we saw the CFO Martin Mulligan and his Accounting colleague Tracy Taylor selling down less than 10% of their holdings.

On September 11th the Group Compliance Director Nigel Bence sold almost a third of his holdings, selling just over 250,000 shares held in his and his wifes name, to leave them with 561,207 shares.

HL were up more than 50% from their low. With equity trading volumes falling and the US heading for months of financial turmoil as a fallout from the (likely) collapse of Lehman (FT comment), I consider the risks lie substantially on the downside, and suspect Bence, Mulligan and Taylor would agree with me. As management concluded in their results presentation last week: ‘Volatility will impact profit growth’. That volatility is not yet receding.

For my last comment on Hargreaves Lansdown of September 12th ‘Volatility will impact profit growth’ see here.

With a third director selling, I now consider the value of the ‘signal’ from directors dealings to be STRONG.

Addendum Sept 24:

Further selling by CFO Martin Mulligan (sold 142k shares at 202p 19/9) and Head of Group Accounting Tracy Taylor (sold 30k shares at 200p-204p 22/9) reinforce the signal on Hargreaves Lansdown.