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Non-Tech : Claire's Stores (CLE) NYSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Archie Bunker who wrote (451)	12/3/1997 8:55:00 AM
From: Roader	Respond to of 619

Curran On The News: Two Looks At Insiders Federal Filings via Dow Jones ISSUER: FEDERAL FILINGS BUSINESS NEWS SYMBOL: X.FFI Two Looks At Insiders WASHINGTON (FFBN) -- Let me state right up front: I don't know whether the prices of these stocks are going to go up, down, or stay the same. But for investors who like unraveling good mystery stories, a couple of intriguing hints were dropped in Securities and Exchange Commission filings on Tuesday. While probably not appropriate for forming the basis of buy/sell investment decisions on a standalone basis, they offer good points of departure for further evaluation of equities investments, as well as some thoughts about a whole sub-genre of SEC filings that in some quarters of the market is used quite frequently to assist investment decisions. The SEC filings in question are so-called "insider" filings, in which corporate high-ups have to report all buying and selling of their own firms' stocks. These filings come in several flavors, but a couple of the most-watched types are Form 4 filings, which report purchases and sales of stocks, and Form 144 filings which report intentions to sell shares of stock that were issued privately and were not previously registered for sale with the SEC. FFBN began many years ago offering a full feed of insider buying and selling data each day at the request of subscribers who sift through this data in an attempt to determine the sentiment of corporate insiders on their own stock. The theory goes that if insiders - typically officers or board members who would likely know more about the health of a company than anyone else - are buying or selling the stock, then those transactions may be an indicator of future corporate and stock price performance, and investors would be wise to keep on top of this gauge of sentiment. A couple of interesting examples from Tuesday's news file included: Daniel Phillips, chairman and CEO of Dallas-based consumer finance company Firstplus Financial Group (FPFG), reported buying 100,000 shares of his firm's stock on Nov. 26 at $37.50 per share. The most recent purchase left Phillips holding 4.6 million shares of his company's stock. A look at recent price charts on Firstplus common stock show the shares sitting around $36 each, way down from their high of about $60 per share less than two months ago, and closer to their low this year, in January, of $22 each. Fred Hirt, a member of the board at teen fashion retailer Claire's Stores Inc. (CLE), reported selling his entire stake of 56,250 shares on Nov. 12 and 13 at $22.05 to $22.31 per share. Claire's stores common stock has fallen sharply over the past couple of days, declining from $22-5/8 last week to close at $20 on Tuesday, but still well up from the $12 per share level seen at the beginning of the year. Taking into account no other factors, the conventional wisdom might say that Firstplus Financial is a good stock to buy, because its CEO is laying down almost $4 million of his own hard-earned cash to buy the firm's stock at levels way off of recent highs. The conventional wisdom might also say just the opposite about Claire's Stores: when a board member with access to the best information about the firm and it's outlook is bailing out entirely, then maybe the stock is valued too high. But the truth of both matters is that it's very difficult to gauge another person's investment sentiment solely on the basis of a single action, and it's probably contrary to all principles of prudent investing to do so. One old Wall Street aphorism says that there is only one reason to buy, but many reasons to sell. I've spoken to neither of the insiders in this case, but in the past I've done follow-up reporting on dozens of these situations and received almost as many different kinds of reasons for buying and selling, ranging from tax implications to financing college educations, to settling messy divorces. It's a rare instance to find any corporate insider who won't tell you that his company's stock is worth owning - whether or not the insider has been buying or selling. So, what's an investor with a longer-term outlook to do? Probably the best advice is not to jump the gun, and do anything rash on the basis of a single piece of information; it's difficult to imagine many insider transactions that would provide a strong enough indicator in and of itself to trigger a rational buying or selling decision. Pulling a lot of quick trades based solely on insider buying and selling is only likely to make your broker rich. The second best piece of advice is not ignore these filings either, but to view them collectively and over the longer term as possible trend indicators making up one of the many significant piece of the puzzle that must be assembled and understood before truly informed investing decisions can be reached. -- John Curran Executive Editor john.curran@fedfil.com /FEDERAL FILINGS CONTACTS: (202) 393-7856 FOR EDITORIAL, (800) 487-6162 FOR DOCUMENT SALES, (202) 628-8990 FOR NEWSWIRE SALES, (888) FED-FILE FOR TECHNICAL SUPPORT, & fedfil.com // (END) FEDERAL FILINGS-DOW JONES NEWS 12-03-97 08:50 12/03/97 08:50 :TICKER: CLE FPFG FFI.O :SUBJECT: APPR SEC ACOM INTR F