Why You Should Avoid Companies Where Founders and C-Level Execs Are Aggressively Selling Their Stocks.
- Max Teh
- Nov 14, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 27
KEYPOINTS
🔑 Founders selling a lot of stock can be a red flag for long-term investors, signaling a loss of faith, leadership vacuum, or short-term focus.
🔑 Look for companies where founders hold significant stakes (>5%) and have a history of strong performance (e.g., Facebook, Amazon).
🔑 While founder stock sales are a risk factor, consider company fundamentals and exceptions like retirement or capable successors.
Table of contents
Disclaimer: This communication is provided for information purposes only and is not intended as a recommendation or a solicitation to buy, sell or hold any investment product. Readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions.
Reasons why this could be red flag for long-term investors
When founders or C-level executives sell a significant amount of their company's stock, it can be a red flag for investors. Here are a few reasons why:
It could be a sign that the founders are losing faith in the company. If the founders, who have the most intimate knowledge of the company's business and prospects, are selling their shares, it could be a sign that they believe the company is headed for trouble.
It could create a vacuum in leadership. If the founders are selling a significant number of shares, it could leave a vacuum in leadership at the company. This could lead to uncertainty and instability, which could hurt the company's performance.
It could be a sign that the founders are cashing out before the company reaches its full potential. Founders often have a large equity stake in their companies, and selling stock can be a way for them to realize their gains. However, if the company is still in its early stages of growth, selling stock could be a sign that the founders are not confident in the company's long-term prospects.
It could be a sign that the founders are not committed to the company's long-term success. Founders who are selling stock may be more focused on their short-term financial gains than on the long-term success of the company. This could lead to decisions that are not in the best interests of shareholders.
Long-term investors should favor companies where the founders have high ownership of the companies, preferably 5% or more.
This is because founders with a significant stake in the company are more likely to be aligned with the interests of shareholders and make decisions that are in the best long-term interests of the company.
Here are some examples of companies that have performed well over the long run when founders held a lot of their stocks for a long time:
Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg
stock returned CAGR of 21% in past 11 years
Tesla by Elon Musk
stock returned CAGR of 47% in past 13 years
Fortinet by Ken & Michael Xie
stock returned CAGR of 27% in past 14 years
Vitrox by Chu, Jenn Weng
stock returned CAGR of 28% in past 17 years
NVIDIA by Huang, Jen-Hsun
stock returned CAGR of 29% in past 25 years
Amazon by Jeff Bezos
stock returned CAGR of 32% in past 27 years
Berkshire Hathaway by Warren Buffett
stock returned CAGR of 16% in past 40 years
However, it is important to note that not all founder-led companies are good investments.
It is still important to do your own research and invest in companies with strong fundamentals.
Here are some companies where their founders have sold off a significant amount of their shares upon going public:
Crowdstrike by Kurtz, George R.
Lemonade by Schreiber, Daniel Asher
Datadog by Pomel, Olivier & Le-Quoc, Alexis
Wework by Neumann Adam
C3.ai by Siebel, Thomas M.
Long-term investors are advised to avoid investing in these companies, to mitigate the aforementioned risks.
However, do note that there are some companies where their founders/ C-level execs sold off a significant amount of their stocks, but the stock can still generate great returns over the long-run.
For example, Palo Alto's Founder-CTO Zuk Nir, has been selling his stocks consistently over the last 10 years, yet the stock is still generating great returns for its investors.
Exceptions:
When the insiders/ management team are selling off their stocks, it may not necessary be a redflag.
Some exception can be made when:
1) the founders/ C-level execs are nearing a retirement age,
and they start to liquidate their stock's position to prepare their transition for stepping out of their respective managerial roles.
2) If the insiders sold off some of the stocks during periods when the stocks are overvalued, it may be acceptable. There may be instances where the stock has become too overvalued (for example, when the P/S ratio has gotten too high), and insiders may sell of some of their holdings. This may be acceptable as it can be considered as prudent wealth management strategy on their part, it will be very favourable to see the same insiders buy back the shares again in the future when valuation falls into a more sensible range however.
"Insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise" - Peter Lynch
Methods to view insiders' historical stock balance
i. Insidertrades.com > Insider Trading History
Search for your company on insidertrades.com and go under "Insider trading history"
on this table you can find the important info such as
Title of the exec
Buy/ Sell
No. of Shares after transaction
respective Form4 (under Details)
View the respective Exec's historical shares balance
Clicking on Ken Xie (CEO), I can view his historical shares ownership balance
scrolling back to 2019's figures (12.5mill units~), I can see that he currently owns alot more share (51mill units), hence this is a good sign.
note: however this platform is more suitable for US companies, as international companies' data may not be available here.
ii. Fintel.io > Insiders > Transaction History
Search for your company on fintel.io and go under "Insiders"
Scroll down to "Transaction History", and click on the Exec you would like to view their shares transaction
on this table, you can view important info such as the:
Remaining shares
Code
respective Form 4s
Look at the trend on the "Remaining Shares" column
Scrolling down the "Insider trading history" table, I can see that Michael Xie's current shares owned (11million) is higher compared to his previous amount (7.2 million) in 2012, so this is a good sign that he is increasing his no. of shares owned.
note: however this platform is more suitable for US companies, as international companies' data may not be available here.
iii. Secform4.com
Look under Insider Trading > click on the respective Exec
and over here you can view the exec's shares owned (combination of both direct & indirect ownership) at any point of time.
Caveat: however do note that the entry filings may not be as timely as the insidertrades.com option above.
Other methods to download and view insiders' stock transaction details
i. Company's SEC filings
Look in the company's investor relations page > Financials > SEC Filings > and filter for
"Section 16 Filings" or "Group 3,4,5"
here you will find the Form 4s, which will indicate the amount of stocks the exec transacted.
ii. Marketbeat.com > SEC Filings
Alternatively, go to Marketbeat.com > SEC Filings > Filter for "Only Show Ownership Filings" and under the VIEW tab, you can find all the Form 4 documents.
this method is useful because it shows you the name of the Filers, and you can also filter for the time period too.
however, on marketbeat.com there could be some delays (may take up to weeks) before the Form 4 will be appearing, so for the most timely filing, best to check on the Company's SEC filings directly.
vi. Others
Use Gurufocus.com Search for the name of the respective insiders,and look for the transaction summary chart, but this service may require paid membership.
Use an AI-powered chatbot like Gemini or Co-pilot. However, keep in mind that these chatbots are still under development and may not be completely accurate, but reliability is expected to improve overtime.
Caveat: this is not a direct causation. Companies' stocks may still perform well over the long-run even if this happens.
Stock prices of the companies can still increase if the fundamentals of the companies are still intact although the C-level execs have been selling a lot of their holdings, as were the case with
Celsius Holdings
Netflix
Palo Alto
Hubspot
Microsoft
Salesforce
Mercado Libre
Servicenow (more on this article here).
So this is only one of the many evaluation criteria to consider when analysing a stock.
"Insider selling is a terrible reason to dislike a stock." - Peter Lynch [1]
Conclusion:
When investing, it is important to be aware of the risks involved.
One way to mitigate risk is to avoid investing in companies where founders or C-level executives are selling a significant amount of their stock.
Long-term investors should favor companies where the founders have high ownership of the companies.
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