We’ve lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. On the other hand,capitalize hors d'oeuvres 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

Archer Limited

(

OB:ARCHER

).

What Is Insider Buying?

It’s quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

We don’t think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Colombia University

study

found that ‘insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own company’s stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers’.

See our latest analysis for Archer

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Archer

There wasn’t any very large single transaction over the last year, but we can still observe some trading.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders bought 71.00k shares for a total of øre458k. In total, Archer insiders bought more than they sold over the last year. They paid about øre6.46 on average. These transactions suggest that insiders have considered the current price of øre4.33 attractive. The chart below shows insider transactions over the last year. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

OB:ARCHER Insider Trading January 2nd 19

Archer is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find

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list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Insiders at Archer Have Bought Stock Recently

There was some insider buying at Archer over the last quarter. Insiders bought US$307k worth of shares in that time. It’s great to see that insiders are only buying, not selling. But the amount invested in the last three months isn’t enough for us too put much weight on it, as a single factor.

Insider Ownership

For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Archer insiders own 0.1% of the company, currently worth about øre796k based on the recent share price. This kind of significant ownership by insiders does generally increase the chance that the company is run in the interest of all shareholders.

Story continues

So What Does This Data Suggest About Archer Insiders?

It’s certainly positive to see the recent insider purchases. And the longer term insider transactions also give us confidence. But on the other hand, the company made a loss last year, which makes us a little cautious. We would certainly prefer see higher levels of insider ownership but analysis of the insider transactions suggests that Archer insiders are expecting a bright future. Therefore, you should should definitely take a look at this

FREE

report showing analyst forecasts for Archer

.

Of course

Archer may not be the best stock to buy

. So you may wish to see this

free

collection of high quality companies.

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

[email protected]

.

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