In the last year, many Vera Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERA) insiders sold a substantial stake in the company which may have sparked shareholders' attention. Knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more helpful when evaluating insider transactions, as insider selling can have various explanations. However, shareholders should take a deeper look if several insiders are selling stock over a specific time period.
While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.
Check out our latest analysis for Vera Therapeutics
In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the Chief Financial Officer, Sean Grant, sold US$735k worth of shares at a price of US$40.06 per share. While we don't usually like to see insider selling, it's more concerning if the sales take place at a lower price. The silver lining is that this sell-down took place above the latest price (US$33.37). So it is hard to draw any strong conclusion from it.
In the last year Vera Therapeutics insiders didn't buy any company stock. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!
I will like Vera Therapeutics better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of undervalued and small cap stocks with considerable, recent, insider buying.
I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Insiders own 0.8% of Vera Therapeutics shares, worth about US$17m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.
The fact that there have been no Vera Therapeutics insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. Our analysis of Vera Therapeutics insider transactions leaves us cautious. But we do like the fact that insiders own a fair chunk of the company. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Vera Therapeutics. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for Vera Therapeutics (2 are a bit concerning) you should be aware of.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.
For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.
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