It is gracie and the grumpnot uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of share prices declining precipitously after insiders have sold shares. So before you buy or sell

Saga Communications, Inc.

(

NASDAQ:SGA

), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.

Do Insider Transactions Matter?

Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. As Peter Lynch said, ‘insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise.’

View our latest analysis for Saga Communications

Saga Communications Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when Director Warren Lada sold US$61k worth of shares at a price of US$35.89 per share. So we know that an insider sold shares at around the present share price of US$33.11. They might be selling for a variety of reasons, but it’s hard to argue this is a bullish sign. Arguably, insider selling at around current prices should give us reason to reflect on whether the stock is fully valued at the moment. Warren Lada was the only individual insider to sell over the last year.

You can see the insider transactions over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

NasdaqGM:SGA Insider Trading January 1st 19

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Insider Ownership

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Saga Communications insiders own about US$34m worth of shares (which is 17% of the company). This kind of significant ownership by insiders does generally increase the chance that the company is run in the interest of all shareholders.

So What Do The Saga Communications Insider Transactions Indicate?

An insider hasn’t bought Saga Communications stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. And even if we look to the last year, we didn’t see any purchases. But it is good to see that Saga Communications is growing earnings. Insider ownership isn’t particularly high, so this analysis makes us cautious about the company. So we’d only buy after careful consideration.

I like to dive deeper

into how a company has performed in the past. You can access

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To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at

[email protected]

.

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