Biotech Values

[mcbio]

Re: ACHN/insider transactions

ACHN It may have been discussed here at great length, but in beginning to reaearch the company, the information on insider/large holder transactions doesn't look very promising:

www.insidercow.com/

Any quick comments or references to prior information posted here? The ACHN message board is pretty skimpy.

I honestly don't pay much attention to insider transactions. But, I will say that I don't consider the recent sales entirely surprising inasmuch as the stock has done quite well of late moving from the $1 range not so long ago to well above $3 before falling back into the $2s after the recent financing. I sold a quarter of my position myself when the stock was in the $3s given the run-up to take some profit, but I recently added that back with the stock in the $2s and the company in much better financial shape after the dilution. So, I can't blame others for selling when I did the same to some degree.

Also, all of the recent sales are just from large shareholders, and not actual officers of the company. I would put more weight into, say, the president selling a bunch of shares than someone who is just a large shareholder but doesn't otherwise have the same insights into a company as the president would. All that said, I still don't view officer sales too negatively necessarily, because insiders can sell for a number of reasons that may have absolutely nothing to do with the health of their company. On the flip side, you may not see a lot of company officers purchasing shares, because they already have a lot of options, warrants, etc. in the company. So, long story short, I don't think you can put a lot of faith in trading based off of insider transactions. I've seen several examples where there was a ton of true insider buying (officers) and the stock still cratered.