Have Greene Bancorp Insiders Been Selling Stock?
Anyone interested in Greene Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:GCBC) should probably be aware that the Director, Michelle Plummer, recently divested US$355k worth of shares in the company, at an average price of US$35.52 each. However, the silver lining is that the sale only reduced their total holding by 6.7%, so we're hesitant to read anything much into it, on its own.
Greene Bancorp Insider Transactions Over The Last Year
Notably, that recent sale by Michelle Plummer is the biggest insider sale of Greene Bancorp shares that we've seen in the last year. That means that even when the share price was slightly below the current price of US$35.82, an insider wanted to cash in some shares. We generally consider it a negative if insiders have been selling, especially if they did so below the current price, because it implies that they considered a lower price to be reasonable. Please do note, however, that sellers may have a variety of reasons for selling, so we don't know for sure what they think of the stock price. This single sale was just 6.7% of Michelle Plummer's stake.
Over the last year, we can see that insiders have bought 21.57k shares worth US$485k. On the other hand they divested 20.00k shares, for US$643k. Michelle Plummer divested 20.00k shares over the last 12 months at an average price of US$32.15. 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!
View our latest analysis for Greene Bancorp
I will like Greene Bancorp 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.
Insider Ownership
For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Greene Bancorp insiders own about US$25m worth of shares. That equates to 4.0% of the company. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.
So What Do The Greene Bancorp Insider Transactions Indicate?
An insider sold Greene Bancorp shares recently, but they didn't buy any. And our longer term analysis of insider transactions didn't bring confidence, either. But since Greene Bancorp is profitable and growing, we're not too worried by this. Insiders own shares, but we're still pretty cautious, given the history of sales. We're in no rush to buy! So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. For example - Greene Bancorp has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.
But note: Greene Bancorp may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt.
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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