Trader’s Narrative

As the market races to the bottom, corporate insiders are racing right along buying with both hands. For the past four weeks, insider activity as monitored by InsiderScore, corporate executives and board members have been in what can only be described as a buying frenzy.

According to InsiderScore, “insiders are more bullish now than at any time since the two weeks immediately following the Black Monday market crash of October 1987“:

Source: InsiderScore.com and SentimenTrader.com

I checked with a similar service that tracks Canadian stocks: Canadian Insider and not surprisingly, the Canadian market is showing a similar pattern of insider buying.

The pattern was especially noticeable for Canadian REITs. And I’m not referring to ESOP where there is a preset schedule. REIT insiders are going out into the market and buying of their own volition. RioCan REIT, which I mentioned a few days ago, had 11,440 units purchased just on November 19th and November 20th, as an example.

The same can’t be said about precious metal stocks. For example, Barrick (ABX) and NovaGold (NG) do not show any buying interest from corporate insiders. If anything, there is a slight bias of selling. Which means that while insiders as a group are very bullish, they are still being selective. The k-ratio fell to 0.23 and has rebounded with Friday’s move in gold. That’s getting close to an attractive level for gold stocks, but if we are headed for a deflationary spiral, gold doesn’t stand a chance. But so far, the Philadelphia Gold Bugs Index (HUI) has bounced off the 175 level which I mentioned would act as support.

There’s Always a But…
A caveat to consider: in September 2007 insiders were enthusiastic buyers. Although not nearly as now. That uptick in buying was, of course, not very profitable since most stocks topped out shortly afterward. The question now is, does today’s frenzy mean that insiders see real value or will we simply see the market fall more and insiders get even more excited about buying?

Whatever the answer to that, the solace that the current buying pattern does provide is that insiders are not selling. The worst possible scenario after all, would be to see the “smart money” insiders bail out after the market’s face melting 50%+ decline.

Here is this week’s sentiment summary:

Insider Selling
The bad news is that according to Argus Research, insiders selling pressure is now double what it was during the bottom in March. The good news is that it is still low enough to mean that insiders do not view the ensuing bounce as just a bear market rally. That gives you an idea of just how critical the March 2008 bottom was!

In mid-March, just as the market was trying to find footing, the sell to buy ratio hit 1:1. This is very rare since the long term average is just a tad above 2:1, meaning on a given week insiders sell 2 times as many shares as they buy. The last time this ratio was lower was in October 2002 when it reached 0.89:1.

Even better news, according to new research the “normal” level of selling to buying has been reset much higher due to the increasing allocation of ESOP as compensation for executives. Check out the book by Prof. Nejat Seyhun (University of Michigan) “Investment Intelligence from Insider Trading” for more.

Sentiment Surveys
There were no significant changes in the usual sentiment surveys I follow, namely AAII and Investor’s Intelligence, as bulls continue to outnumber the bears.

Investor’s Intelligence had 47.3% bulls and 30.8% bears while AAII had a similarly slight increase from 45% bulls to 46%. While optimism has the majority it isn’t anywhere near levels correspondent with major market tops.

ISEE Sentiment
This is rather odd. Usually when the market receives the kind of drubbing it got this week, option traders hurry to buy downside protection. But the reverse happened according to the ISE options data. The All Securities ISEE Sentiment Index actually went up from 117 to 140 on Friday.

This means that there were 140 calls bought (to open) for every put on the ISE platform. This isn’t the highest levels of optimism by any means. On October 8th it reached 187 and October 29th 192. But it isn’t just the absolute level of call to put buying that surprises me, it is the fact that it follows on a really bad week for the markets.

I’ve been cautious since mid April as indicator after indicator lined up against a strong continued rally. That caution seems to have been warranted as we’ve given up all the gains since. This latest ISEE data point is just one more that should keep any contrarian on guard.

CBOE Equity Only Put Call Ratio
In contrast to the ISEE Sentiment data, the CBOE equities only put call ratio went up during the week. Since it is the inverse with calls being the denominator of the ratio, this means that option traders, as measured by the CBOE became actually more cautious as the market fell.

At the end of June I wrote about Crocs (CROX) and Heelys (HLYS), two faddish shoe companies that I didn’t think had any longevity.

Back then Crocs’ shares were in the low $40’s and Heelys were in the mid $20’s (red arrows below). Heelys’ chart looked much worse as it was in a clear downtrend and had just fallen through intermediate support. Not surprisingly it fared worst among the two. Today it closed at $6.19 a share.

Crocs fared better as it rose to a high of $75 but since then it has fallen to the high $30’s. The damage is in the broken uptrend:

Even Maddox got in on the action and landed a few punches. As you’d expect, insiders have been selling like crazy. The insider selling wasn’t a tipoff since anytime you have a huge runup, insiders can’t resist taking free money. The actual tipoff was that the product is a fad and offers no real benefits which competitors can not emulate at a much cheaper price.

Insider activity is a reliable metric which I haven’t discussed in a while. It is a bit quirky because by nature, insiders are net sellers. They get allocated shares as a pay package or through option incentives and they usually turn around and sell.

It is also natural for them to sell in a rising market. So in a bull market, seeing a rise in insider selling isn’t necessarily a harbinger of doom. In contrast though, insiders can tell us a lot more during market declines - like the one we’ve been having lately.

If insiders continue to sell or increase the pace as the market falls, this is a very negative tell for the market. In effect, the insiders are saying that things are probably going to get worse (so they want out now).

But if insiders start to buy during a down turn that has strong bullish interpretations. Although, when I say buy, what I mean in effect is sell less than the usual.

By comparing the buys and sells, we can track the relative sentiment of insiders. Last summer, just as the market was about to make a bottom, the ratio of insider sells to buys fell to 2. That is a very low number and it basically means that on average for every 2 shares sold, one is bought.

Remarkably, just as the market was peering into the abyss in mid August, according to Vickers Weekly Insider Report, the sell to buy ratio fell to an incredible 0.92!! This meant that there were actually slightly more shares bought than sold.

Since insiders are by nature net sellers, this is a very rare occurrence. The implications it has for the market are unmistakeably bullish.

Consider this other tidbit: the last time the ratio fell to less than 1 was in late 2002, marking with uncanny precision the end of the bear market.

I find it remarkable to see the market just below all time highs with such positive insider sentiment. The bull market doesn’t seem to care that it is long in the tooth, doesn’t seem to care about the sub-prime mess, or any other “logical” reason why it should not go higher and higher.

Hoo-Kay… let’s see. Why is this a buying opportunity for someone with a medium to long term time horizon?

Glad you asked.

Fund Flows
We already know that the vast majority of investor’s money is flowing oversears, eschewing the US equity market. But with the recent market decline, investors are now pulling money out in a panic. According to TrimTabs, they withdrew $7.6 Billion last week. That sort of panic is similar to what we saw in late February 2007 when investors pulled $6.5 Billion.

Insiders Are Buying
Meanwhile, insiders have been scooping up unloved shares at a pace not seen in 3 years. That was in August 2004 as stocks hit an intermediate bottom. Ask yourself, is there anything insiders know that we don’t? Who would I rather side with? insiders or Mom’n'Pop investors who are ruled by emotion?

Sentiment
Speaking of emotion, while sentiment surveys are not yet in, I suspect that we’ll see a marked decline in bullishness and a rise in bearishness. Only one is in so far and it shows a tilt towards bearishness as fear grips investors. But looking at unorthodox places like newspaper headlines and media stories we can find a lot of negative chatter.

“Usual Suspects” Show Fear
The usual indicators that most people turn to are showing fear: volatility indices and the put/call ratios. And the increasingly popular % of stocks above a moving average.

Scapegoat: Sub-Prime Mortgates
Everytime the market falls, a convenient reason is trotted out to explain it in a sound bite. Today’s is the subprime mortgage market. In the spring it was China’s fault. They sneezed. We caught a cold. While it is ugly out there in the subprime market, risk profiles are returning to more normal levels.

It is not the end of the world as we know it. According to the credit default swap market, we are in full blown panic right now. As a result the financial sector has gotten crushed to absurd valuation levels. Over the long term, this is one heck of a great buying opportunity as people panic and throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Market Internals
Popping the hood on the market and taking a peek inside we see that the internals are also showing panic and fear. At levels which historically have installed important market bottoms. Take a look at the new highs, versus new lows. The advance decline line, likewise has found a high probability buy zone here.

The Commercials
Like the insiders, they know something. They aren’t telling exactly what, but who cares? All we need to do is follow what they do. That’s the most convincing argument they can put forth: money where their mouth is. The commercials have steadfastly and consistently increased a ginormous net long position. Who do you want to side with? them or the little guy who was buying calls like crazy just before the market dove off?

Fundymentals
Let’s not give the technical tools all the fun. How abou the IBES model? It is showing that equity markets are very cheap here. Yes, very. And cheap. Don’t like the IBES? Fine. How about that the market’s forward multiple is 14.7, which is a little below its 20 year average? Still think the market is inordinantly expensive and in need of a fall?

Bond Market
A lot was made of the bond market’s fall in June 2007. But guess what, the yields spiked on the 10 year and 30 year Notes have fallen dramatically. Don’t believe me? Pull up a quote. If you’re a chart and system junkie, take a look at the 30 day rate of change for the bond market.

Traditional Technical Analyisis
Price, moving averages, trendlines and good ol’ support and resistance. The market has fallen to its 200 day moving average, where it has found footing before several times. The uptrend is still intact. And the S&P 500 is right at the support (previous resistance) line at 1460(ish) - check out the graph.

Bad News Trio
Bad news is everywhere: American Home Mortgage is in bankruptcy, Sowood Capital, imploded taking with it hundreds of millions of investor’s money. And just today rumours were swirling of Beazer Homes’ (BZH) bankruptcy. As far as I know they were unsubstantiated. But the important thing is that the negative headlines and fear is palpable. Just this week there was an article on the Wall Street Journal asking if the bull market was over? This cluster of negative articles and media attention accompanies market bottoms, not tops.

The IPO Market Speaks
When things get frothy, the IPO market goes insane. Crazy ideas are funded and taken public. Remember the turds from the bubble years? e-Stamps anyone? Right now though we have a healthy IPO market. One that is open and functioning without being irrationally exuberant. That bodes well for the market in general as this study from Thomson Financial shows.