My intention when I downloaded the entire history of director dealings was to post a one-line comment on Ed's post - but as with many of my comments here - I seem to eat up the digital landscape - so a separate post was appropriate. 


Hi,

Completely understand logical aspects behind following people with “skin the game” - but there might be another side of the coin here where completely self-absorbed or inflated egoistical mindsets fuel these transactions - so I have a simple question -

Are these transactions worth following?

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Download all 175,057 “Director dealings” since 01/01/2000 to 27/11/2020
Suppressed non sterling transactions - Gross count 4,580
Suppressed zero value transactions - Gross count 36,71
Suppressed transaction types which are labelled Buy or Sell (Only intentional timed transactions remain)
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Before we answer the main question - lets first get a feeling for the data.

How many transactions are listed in a year?

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There has been a steady but significant increase of director transactions in the past 2 decades with over 4/5 been purchases rather than sales. But this is actually quite misleading when looking at the value of the transactions displayed on the next table.

Whats the value transactions listed in a year?

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Most recently the yearly total purchases have averaged around £500 Million - but the sales have averaged around £1.5 Billion. Despite a sale only accounting for 20% of transactions, they are on average 14 times larger in value than a purchase leading to 75% of the transactions value. In my opinion, these purchases are not “timed trades” but investments where individuals are drip feeding over time and pulling their investment all at once - presumably due to retirement/life events.

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So who is making these transactions?

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Opinions are welcome here - but its interesting to note where financial directors sit on this list.


So, have these directors transaction been actually profitable? (Median Value)

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Since 2013, the majority of purchases are sitting at a loss with the exception been 2020 where individuals took advantage of the uncertainty.…

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