Don't Ignore The Insider Selling In Precision Drilling

Anyone interested in Precision Drilling Corporation (TSE:PD) should probably be aware that the CTO & President of International, Shuja Goraya, recently divested CA$409k worth of shares in the company, at an average price of CA$128 each. On the bright side, that sale was only 9.3% of their holding, so we doubt it's very meaningful, on its own.

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Precision Drilling Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the Chief Operating Officer, Gene Stahl, sold CA$1.7m worth of shares at a price of CA$138 per share. We generally don't like to see insider selling, but the lower the sale price, the more it concerns us. The silver lining is that this sell-down took place above the latest price (CA$124). So it is hard to draw any strong conclusion from it.

In the last year Precision Drilling insiders didn't buy any company stock. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) 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!

See our latest analysis for Precision Drilling

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Insider Ownership Of Precision Drilling

Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Precision Drilling insiders own about CA$36m worth of shares. That equates to 2.3% of the company. This level of insider ownership is good but just short of being particularly stand-out. It certainly does suggest a reasonable degree of alignment.

What Might The Insider Transactions At Precision Drilling Tell Us?

Insiders haven't bought Precision Drilling stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. And even if we look at the last year, we didn't see any purchases. While insiders do own shares, they don't own a heap, and they have been selling. So we'd only buy after careful consideration. So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. While conducting our analysis, we found that Precision Drilling has 1 warning sign and it would be unwise to ignore this.

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For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.