Yahoo Finance Should You Be Worried About Insider Transactions At Hanger, Inc. (NYSE:HNGR)?
It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. On the other hand, we’d be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So shareholders might well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Hanger, Inc. (NYSE:HNGR).
What Is Insider Buying?
It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.
We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Harvard University study found that ‘insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year.’
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The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Hanger
In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when Senior VP Thomas Hartman sold US$119k worth of shares at a price of US$20.26 per share. So we know that an insider sold shares at around the present share price of US$19.55. While their view may have changed since the sale, this is not a particularly positive fact. We usually pause to reflect on the potential that a stock has a high valuation, if insiders have been selling at around the current price. Thomas Hartman was the only individual insider to sell shares in the last twelve months.
You can see the insider transactions (by 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!
For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.
Insider Ownership of Hanger
Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Insiders own 4.5% of Hanger shares, worth about US$32m. We’ve certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.
So What Do The Hanger Insider Transactions Indicate?
An insider hasn’t bought Hanger stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. Looking to the last twelve months, our data doesn’t show any insider buying. Insiders own shares, but we’re still pretty cautious, given the history of sales. We’d think twice before buying! If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future.
But note: Hanger 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.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
