Depends, it is always best to look at the actual Form 4's and read the notes on them to see if they give some info. In this case we really do not have a specific reason. You have to remember this is a development stage company and a lot of compensation was in stock as opposed to cash. Just like a couple of weeks ago they awarded all the executives Stock Options. Over time some will in fact sell their share to cover certain expenses.
The smaller Form 4 for 29,000 shares is quite meaningless in the grand scheme of things, also it will be amended because the note doesn't match the transaction code used, they used "D" for disposed and yet the footnote incorrectly states "Purchased". They sold $160,000 of stock, which is not a lot.
The larger Form 4 however is quite different, they sold 1 million shares each day for the past 3 trading days. Yesterday they accounted for a little under 10% of the total volume. The other two days however that is 20-25% of the total daily volume, so it is quite the impact on trading. We were "bottomed" before these shares were being sold, they pushed under these past 3 days along with other market issues. This would have likely traded sideways and slightly up the past 3 days if there wasnt this amount of pressure on trading. This ate another 9-12% because of this selling.
We are unfortunately at that time of year when taxes are done and so some of this could very well be related to that very fact. Although I cannot see $15 million going out in sales for tax purposes, but I can certainly see the smaller Form 4 for that very reason, Executives are often responsible for their own payroll taxes among many other things. He sold 3 years ago on April 7th for a similar amount of money $133,120. I am pretty certain the "Glenn" transaction relates to his own personal taxes.
The large Form 4 for 3 million shares will leave you scratching for days. I know some will try to view it as a Negative event, but the timing is actually a positive in this case. If someone was trying to take advantage of price they certainly are not going to wait after peaking at new 52 week highs and sell after a nearly 25% correction from those highs. This was likely held until results were publicly released and a little time after to show it has nothing to do with recent "information". There 3 separate entities Identified on that Form 4, you have a Holding and Pharmaceutical company owned and operated by the individual "Modi". It is likely the cash was needed for reasons specific to those businesses and this was the perfect lull between public events to sell to fund those operations. He may have needed the money and decided on one large pull at the same time so he had the needed capital for the year.
We can all guess at what it is all about in that case, but we are not likely to learn that answer any time soon. Nothing nefarious about it all and I wouldn't take it as an indication of future NVAX public information. This guy Modi hasn't sold anything ever, and is likely taking a piece of his ownership to build his own company overseas, we can speculate on either a soon departure or even a request by the board to sell down some of his position of ownership for changes in the future. As of the result of these sales he is no longer a "Beneficial Owner" as disclosed by the Sched 13 filed recording that event.
I wouldnt worry about it and actually relieved to see part of the answer as to what drove the price down these past 3 days. I would expect this to now recover at this point as we saw good volume yesterday a solid indication that buying has moved back in.
