Bill, you have made quite a leap from noting insider sales at short term tops to "stock promotion fraud."
Let's take a closer look at your theory. As has been pointed out already, and as you surely know, IDX and similar companies use stock options in lieu of higher salaries. Modest employee or insider selling is an unremarkable event, and the level of insider sales at this company is not high enough to raise the eyebrows of a reasonable observer.
If you look at your own graph, you'll see that in 1997 there were insider sales while IDX was trading in a fairly tight and rhythmic range, and then insider sales dried up for over a year while the stock went into a decline. (I suppose you could infer from that that insiders decided the stock was underpriced and not worth selling during that period.) After over a year without significant sales, the insider selling resumed at a heavier level, coinciding with two short-term peaks. The heavier selling level seems to reflect pent-up cash need from the comparatively long nonselling period while the stock price was depressed.
So we are down to discussing the short term timing of sales in the past few months, which you characterize as fraudulent. To show fraud, you are going to have to have some evidence of price manipulation, since the SEC does allow insider sales, and there is no law against an insider making a lucky guess or having a good sense of market timing. In this case, where the stock made a couple of sharp moves related to the Identicator acquisition, insiders were not 'pumping' with misleading press releases. The move was based on fundamentals. I'm sure the IDX management was aware that there were no big stories in the offing, and that helped them to sell after 50% spikes. But, in the absence of any misleading information released to the public, that ain't fraud. You haven't made your case.
I do think Fowler is good at recognizing value, and that the cost of his acquisitions, dating back to ANADAC, reflect his good judgment. It doesn't surprise me that he may enjoy the same benefits in his stock sales.
NOTE TO THREAD: Let's keep this discussion with Wexler here, and stay off his thread. His post here occurred after a brief IDX flurry completely fizzled on his thread and this looks like he is trolling for more fuel for his acolytes over there. (You may see me over there, though, simply responding to substantive remarks or questions put to me. I'm not going to be initiating exchanges.) |
