Valid Question

rask3: Hi, Thanks for your views. I enjoy your arguments as well as your humour. :) An avalanche of statistics can be trotted out to stress the validity of a projection. Yet those statistics can fail to capture a very crucial factor or point that casts reasonable and valid doubts on the prophecy. I would like to illustrate what I mean by an example from your own blog. Several weeks ago you called a buy on UEM World at around RM4.00 or thereabouts. Correct me if I am wrong. (I made a bigger call when stock went to RM3.20) You painted a rosy scenario on how the stock could double or triple from there, before the year is out. Well, you may turn out to be right and make many people rich by your prediction. Being the cynic that I'm I checked the stock on Bursa's website. You know anyone could do that easily. What I found was, insiders of UEM were selling the stock like crazy and en masse. Knowing that insider selling is not always an ominous sign, I considered the reasons for them to do so. They may have sold them for any of the following reasons:
1) They all had better investment opportunities elswhere.
2) They all were not greedy and wanted to leave some money on the table for others.
3) They all had to meet urgent financial obligations.
4) They all were taking partial profits as an insurance, in case the market tanked and took away their paper profits.
5) Being better informed about the company, they didn't put much credence on the rosy projections made in the print media or the internet.
6) Well, there could be other reasons.

I wondered at that time why your scenario didn't point out the crucial fact of heavy insider selling. May be you weren't aware. May be you thought it was not all that significant. May be ........ Well, readers, take all investment or trading advice, be it in the print or internet media with a pinch of salt before you plonk down your hard earned money. Check out the story. Dig deeper. You owe it to your financial health. Despite the disclaimers that people who make recommendations cover themselves with, people do act on recommendations if they seem plausible at first glance. Sometimes their prophecies become self-fulfilling. Thanks and good luck. Rask

Nice job Rask. I am aware of the insider selling. Good advice too. Me, I tend to think all people should pull back and take a snapshot where they are most comfortable over the situation. You assume insiders know the destiny of a stock price. Of course insider selling is not a terribly good sign but it is also not necessarily a sell sign. Yusli can tell you that already!!! He sold at RM6.50 and then at RM8.50 ... call him up!!! I do agree that insider selling is more important when it comes to very speculative or low paid up counters, more prone to manipulation, not so much when it comes to bigger caps.

Just think of the time when you LOST the most money on a stock, think clearly, ... wasn't it because you were so close to the source, very inside already!!! 9 out of 10 times, that's the case, which is why its better to pull back and take an overall snapshot of a view. That's why Warren Buffett can operate better by not being in NY or London but Omaha. The same insiders who are selling are just as intelligent as you and me. To take insider selling as an indicator is ok.