There are many different theories to which stock is best, one theory is which company does the senior people buy more shares? If they are risking more of their money, perhaps the stock is doing better than expected or something is in the future which will enrich them sooner than later. All the data sources track the information and you can determine if you wish to do it to. In early April, Khaled Eniba of Thomson Reuters examined insider buying. His criteria was:

companies trading at price-earnings to growth (PEG) multiples lower than the main index (S7P 500 was 2.1) . PEG is the company’s Price/Earnings divided by the expected earnings growth rate over the next 12 months. Lower numbers are good.

price discount to analyst target less than 5% – the ratio of the current market price to the average analyst price target

insiders have been consistently buying shares over the past 24 months

an insider-net-buyer ratio at or greater than 75

Company                     Price to      P/E      PEG   Dividend     Inside Net    No of Adj Net Insider

Price Target                      Yield            Buyer Ratio   Buyers     Sellers

Citigroup                    7.2%            12.6     1.1          1.1%             77                   27            3

Morgan Stanley        9.7                14.6     0.8          1.9                 78                 20             2

Dow Chemical          10.0               17.9     1.9          2.9                93                  23             0

Gen Dynamics            7.5              19.0       1.8         1.8                 75                 24              3

Capital One Fin         13.9              12.4       0.9          1.9                93                24              1

Southwest Air             14.0             15.2       1.2         0.7                 88               17              2

Northern Trust             5.1            19.9         1.5        1.8                  86              27              2

Citizens Fin                   8.1            17.7         0.9         1.6                 96               24             1

Huntington Banc        11.5            19.0        0.6         2.4                 92               30              1

Harris Corp                    5.9            21.1         0.9        1.9                 80                21             1

Snap-On                         14.1           18.2          1.7        1.7                 75               16             3

E*TRADE Fin                 15.4           17.6          1.7        n/                   78               18            0

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while all the above pay dividends, one would expect there are more buyers than sellers because it would take a significant event to move the price one way or another. The above data would encourage you to hold, if you own any of the above. However, if you changed the data to smaller companies, there might be something which would suggest more research, for example is the company going to be bought? is the company not making money? why are people selling – for newer companies there are holds before senior management can sell. Being curious is good.

There more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.