Infostream,
Insider transactions are just one of many data points that investors might consider when making an investment decision. It is by no means of such importance to be the only indicator that one should buy or sell based upon, and IMO isn't even very high on the priority list of things to consider. Please go to gumminvestors.com and click on the link to Insider Transactions if you would like more information on the insider transactions at Gum Tech. The bottom line is that 144 stock can be held by people who never even worked for the company. 144 stock can be held by people who received stock as a gift from a corporate officer, for example. In addition, some 144 stock is registered for sale and never even sold. This is the case of one insider at Gum Tech. He registered his stock several times and only sold 10% of his holdings. Each time he registered the stock, it showed up as a transaction. This is obviously very misleading.
In addition, institutional ownership in GUMM increased significantly recently according to MSN.com moneycentral.msn.com This kind of blows the argument about insider sales away, doesn't it?...especially when taken in the context of my comments on the 144 registrations and fact that the institutional ownership increased after the 144 stock was registered.
Regarding the mood of investors, I'll just let the chart be my guide. Yes, the stock is four points off its recent high. But it is still way off its 52 week low and I don't see any damage to the chart. I don't have any fear because I have a good handle on the forward fundamentals. Other investors that I know who hold large positions in GUMM have no fear because they too understand that the positive forward fundamentals are very bullish.
Somebody placed a market order to sell about 25,000 shares of GUMM yesterday. I seriously doubt if anyone who is long would dump stock like that because they wouldn't get the best price for their stock. The stock was quiet at the time and they could have sold it off in smaller pieces without driving the price down. This indicates that most likely a short seller unboxed all or part of his long position in an attempt to manipulate the stock. The price popped right back up to where it was when he started selling within a few minutes. Somebody has tried this game several times over the past few months, and each time the stock has recovered quickly. BTW, if somebody is actually doing this, it would be a violation of SEC regulations because it shows intent to manipulate a publicly traded security. It would be very easy for the SEC to obtain trading records if they suspected this type of activity.
Regards,
Dan |
