Pesky Peskin spends another £689k on Great Portland shares

February 8, 2008 in Directors buying, FTSE 250 company, MEDIUM signal | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Richard Peskin clearly believes that the Real Estate sector in the UK remains good value. On the sixth of February he committed a further £689,000 to buying 150,000 shares in his baby Great Portland Estates (GPOR, 456p), at 460p.

As Questor says (24/1/08), this isn’t a ‘value’ stock, but one with low exposure to financial tenants, and above sector portfolio performance. That, and Peskins huge experience in the sector mean that for me, Great Portland remains on the buy list.

See previous posts on GPOR of November 19 2007 and also November 25th 2007.

Retailers – directors add to holdings

February 8, 2008 in Directors buying, FTSE 250 company, MEDIUM signal | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

High Street Store

It’s interesting to see over the last week or so directors at Halfords (HFD), Woolworths (WLW),  N Brown (BWNG), Instore (INST) and Kingfisher (KGF) add to their holdings.

Buys in the General Retailers sector over the last month took place at 14 companies (net 1 month, over £50k, source digitallook), with no companies reporting director sales. This compares with data showing, over the last twelve months (same criteria over total of twelve months), 32 companies with net buys, and 14 with net sells. I believe this to be a significant indicator for the sector, however when looking at individual companies the ‘value’ of this signal is not so clear.

In analysing directors dealings I look for a change of attitude (ie from buy to sell or vice versa) and a historically successful track record in dealing by directors of the company.

Kingfisher (KGF, 133p) Ian Cheshire, CEO, added to his holding this week by buying 268,000 shares at 148p. But he also bought stock in October ’06 at 256p. Is he averaging down, or is this a vote for himself, having taken on the CEO position on January 28th?

N Brown (BWNG, 243p) shows the CEO buying 150k at 240p, but the CFO selling 56k shares at the same price. So in my mind they cancel each other out.

However at Halfords (HFD, 276p), two non execs bought a smallish amount of shares at 269p.  This is Wilsons first foray, and Pym, Halfords Chairman, increased his position by about 50%. What is interesting is that Pym bought  stock in June 2006 at 289p, also 10,000 shares. Halfords share price then ran to 411p in July 2007, which incidentally is where CEO Mcleod sold a significant block of stock.

I’d like to see more buying from Halfords directors before throwing myself into this one. But Halfords should be added to the watchlist.

US company execs buys exceed sells

February 5, 2008 in Market musings | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Have a look at this article in todays FT. Sometimes director buying activity signals a market turn. I don’t have the data to prove it, but it is one of many indicators that could support a change in direction for stock markets.

‘Senior US company executives bought more shares than they sold last month for the first time in 13 years’……………. see FT article

I look also at directors buying activity by sector. I made what was a controversial call at the time, on the back of directors buying activity in the Real Estate sector (see entry of November 25th). Since then the sector is up 10%, and the FT All Share index down 2%, so a relative outperformance of 12%.

Since January 17th, when I highlighted directors buying outpacing selling, we have seen the Travel and Leisure sector outperforming the All Share by 7%, and the Construction and Materials sector by 2%. Early days I feel for these two.

Severfield Chairman rebuilds stake

January 31, 2008 in STRONG signal | Tags: | 2 comments

Selfridges Bridge, Birmingham. SFR steel.

Severfield-Rowen, or SFR plc (SFR, 257p), a supplier of structural steel to large infrastructure projects in the UK, recently warned of softening demand going into 2008, which resulted in a 40% drop in share price. This could have been because investors were shocked to hear negative news on January 24th, having only as recently as December 10th had an upbeat pre close trading statement. Maybe in retail you might see such a quick shift in the trading environment, but not in a business such as structural steel, with long lead times.

So do SFR know what is going on with their customers, or was this just a screw up by SFR management, their brokers, and PR advisors?

I’ll let you decide on this evidence:

Five directors of SFR (11 exec and non exec directors) sold shares between 498p and 565p (adjusted for split) in April and May 2007.

After the share price collapsed last week (January 24th from 390p to a low of 222p the same day), five directors bought shares at between 256p and 258p, investing between £20k and £99k. They increased their holdings by between 50% and 200%.

The icing on the cake came this week, when non exec Chairman Peter Levine invested £992k in 400k shares at 248p. Levine has been Chairman of SFR since 1998. He has been selling SFR shares since April 2006, selling a total of 265k shares (equivalent in new post split form). This is the first time I’ve seen him buying (as far as I can find in the data), and he has increased his position by a multiple of four.

Easyjet- watch Chandler

January 18, 2008 in Directors buying, FTSE 250 company, WEAK signal | Tags: , | 2 comments

‘EasyJet slides as planes fly with empty seats’

Easyjet shares have recently taken a nosedive, prompting four directors to increase their holdings by a significant amount (Michels- Non exec, Browett- Non exec, Chandler- Chairman, and Harrison- CEO).

It is the Chairman, Sir Colin Chandler, who has the best track record. He has bought stock three times in the last five years. Within 10-12 months of his purchase, on each occasion, the share price has appreciated by between 70% to 110%.

Sir Colin Chandler

February 2003- paid 205p. easyjet shares traded at 370p 10 months later.

August 2004- paid 140p. easyjet shares traded at 300p 12 months later.

February 2006- paid 378p. easyjet shares traded at 650p 10 months later.

January 2008- paid 424p.

OK, so Chandler never banked his profits. But from the evidence above he clearly recognises a buying opportunity. An example I’m happy to follow.

Burman starts buying back Signet shares

January 18, 2008 in WEAK signal | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Terry Burman, CEO, has started to buy back some of his Signet (SIG) shares. on Jan 16th he invested £60k at 61p per share to buy 98,000 shares. This is a mere drop in the ocean, and needs to be substantially reinforced through further investing before it becomes a buy signal.

Terry Burman- Signet (smile terry!!)

Why? Well, Tel boy between April 06 and April 07 sold about 3.2m shares between 95p and 124p (note the all time high was 127p in april 07).

A better indicator might be Chairman Malcolm Williamsons purchase on January 17th of 100k shares at 63p. This more than doubles his shareholding to 173,000 shares. Williamson was appointed to the board in 2005, and became chairman the following year. I’m afraid though that Williamsons expertise lies in the financial arena, with present and previous roles at Visa, Standard Chartered, National Australia Bank, and JP Morgan Cazenove. And I’m not sure I’d listen to him with regards to likely future activity of the common or garden consumer. So look for Burman to spend some more $$ before you buy Signet.

Malcolm Williamson- Signet

Real Estate sector- directors buying accelerates

January 17, 2008 in FTSE 250 company, STRONG signal | Tags: , | Leave a comment

When I looked at Director share activity in the Real Estate back in early January, I found that buys outnumbered sells by 4:1 (source digitallook. using net director activity over 1 month. cut off £50k).

I find on my return from holiday that this has now accelerated to 10 buys vs 0 sells. Admittedly these are smaller caps such as Warner (WNER), Big Yellow (BYG), and Hansteen (HSTN). However I strongly believe that this behaviour reinforces our earlier call to buy the sector (November 25th- Real Estate Sector- directors are buying).

I’ve also been looking recently at reversals of director dealing activity by sector. To do this I look at the Directors net dealings over one year, and compare that data with the net activity over one month.

This throws up two sectors of interest, Travel, and Construction and Materials. In the Construction and Materials sector, stocks where we have seen significant director sales in the last twelve months more recently countered by buying activity over the last month, include Carillion (CLLN), Keller (KLR), and Rok (ROK).

In the Travel sector stocks that show a reversal from net selling to net buying are Clapham House, Partygaming, Restaurant Group and Prezzo.

Clearly both these sectors are highly exposed to Interest rates and Consumer sentiment. Opportunities present themselves in the stock market when investor sentiment is one sided. Any change in sentiment results in significant share price changes, as we are starting to see in the Real Estate Sector.

(Real estate sector stocks showing director buying activity over the last month are Sovereign SVN, Warner WNER, Rugby RES, Big Yellow BYG, Naya Bharat NBPC, DTZ DTZ, Hansteen HSTN, Quinlam QED, Real Estate Opportunities REO, Dolphin Capital DCI)

Happy New Year to you all

January 2, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I want to wish you ‘good investing’ in a period of huge uncertainty. I suppose (is ‘hope’ a more appropriate word) the brave will be there to buy when everybody is panicking, which is why I’ve allowed myself to have a list of buys.

When I look at directors dealings I’m looking for a change of pattern or direction, an intensity of director interest indicated by volume and speed, and a sentiment change within a sector.

Stocks that satisfy one or more of these criteria are

  • Wolfson (WLF)
  • Aegis (AGS)
  • Findel (FDL)
  • Enodis (ENO)
  • Segro (SGRO)
  • Hammerson (HMSO)
  • Great Portland (GPOR)
  • Yell (YELL)
  • Michael Page (MPI)

Look in the archives or via the tag list for my reasoning on these stocks.

Real estate stocks are overweighted here, which I suppose shows a tendency to ‘value’, by me and company directors. If I look at the real estate sector overall though, I find that over the last month director buys outnumber sells by about 4:1 (source www.digitallook.com). Interestingly the bank directors seem to have gone a little quiet recently, after a flurry in early November (see RBS) !!

You’ll also notice a preponderence to midcap or ftse250 stocks in this list. This is not intended, but a result of the criteria. I don’t look at stocks smaller than the ftse 250.

Emap- directors believed emap worth more than the market

December 30, 2007 in Directors buying, FTSE 250 company | Tags: | 2 comments

I missed this clear signal from the Emap directors. I noticed two of them (Cathcart and Griffiths) buying up stock on the 11th of December, and missed announcements of further director activity which strongly reinforced the signal…

7th December Emap announces ‘ has terminated all discussions with parties interested in Emap Communications’. Share price falls from 825p to close at 746p on 7th December.

11th-14th December- Five out of the nine Emap Directors buy shares between 732p and 757p, increasing their existing holdings by between 1/4 and three times. Those directors are Carter, Rough, Harrison, Cathcart and Griffiths. Clearly these individuals passionately believed that the market had got it wrong, and was undervaluing EMAP.

21st December- Emap announce an offer worth 931p per share.

Why this was a clear signal:

1. many directors buying, both exec and non exec

2. directors buying significant positions, up to three times the size of their existing position

3. market fed up with lack of bid, arb/hedge funds unwinding positions, therefore opportunity to buy undervalued shares

Why I missed it? Because my system for following directors share activity wasn’t rigorous enough.

Message for you: Pay attention to directors share dealing activity

Wise of Wolfson buys back 58% cheaper

December 21, 2007 in Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave a comment

Take a look at this wise wise man. John Carey, Chairman of Wolfson Microelectronics (WLF 208.5p).

John Carey, Wolfson Chairman

In 1969 he founded Advanced Micro Devices.

In 2000 he became Chairman of Wolfson.

Last year, March to May 2006, he sold 400,000 shares in Wolfson at an average price of 488.25p. He even managed to sell half of these shares at a penny above the all time high close, at 557p!!

Between November 16th and December 18th 2007 he has bought them all back, at an average price of 205p. That is 58% below where he sold them.

Yes, he does own almost 4.4m shares. But this was such a good trade, and this guy is so knowledgable, I thought it worth mentioning.

Bookmark and Share followthedirectors… a study of directors sh - Blogged Kiva - loans that change lives
Add to Technorati Favorites

Prefer to get emails? Click here

Followthedirectors by email

RSS Find us on twitter.com/directorsdeals

  • An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.

twitter

March 2026
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031