Wino115 wrote: You are right about all this history and the options, and I realize that there is a very small window for any transactions given that "material" facts can occur daily that shut it down. But one reason investors focus on that is that incremental buying and the TIMING of that buying is informative, both buying and selling.
It's based on the view, whether true or not, that people who work at a firm have a much clearer view of what is occuring in their projects and hear the old scuttlebut around the "water cooler" that is hard to tamp down in any company. Also, for biotech there are rare occasions that can propel your share up by 2-10x in a short period so you're talking about serious investment returns should you time your purchases well. I'm sure most people working there including all top management would, as you say, only look to increase their purchases when they are highly confident they will not see losses and that the company, in their view from seeing developments day-to-day, is on the verge of a trajectory up. If you sense, see, feel that and there is an open window, an astute employee would look to buy shares in the one investment they know more about then anything else. I'm not at all suggesting "insider information" type situations, but that we've all worked at companies and know that when you're in the weeds, you get a sense, see things happening, hear stuff, that can increase your confidence the company is developing positively.
Of course, there's market risk, but specific news flow in biotech especially around milestones will plow through whatever market dynamics there are. So it's really based on the supposition that people in a company know a lot more and since most aren't multi-millionaires, we assume if they feel confident there's an opportunity to make a few years worth of salary over the next year with their investments, they would do it. That's why it's viewed as a very positive action for management.
The market is also usually pretty astute at seeing through when someone buys shares to try to turnaround the reputation of a dog, in which case the signal is ignored. But in this case with a company on the verge of possibly "transforming how metastatic cancer is treated", it would be a signal that all investors should be more confident the trial is trending in the direction toward a positive and meaningful outcome. Once again, I'm not at all insinuating any "insider info" type situation, just the fact that employees, and especially top managers, will understand the inflection in planning or attitude or strategy planning far quicker and more nuanced than any of us --so it's a highly valuable signal.
jfm1330 wrote: Can you give us a break with insider ownership! Tanguay and Pommier had a lot of shares and were despised here. Also, they are full of options, why would they buy shares? Also, Thera is 28 years old now. It's not a young company where the founders are still there and had huge amount of shares in the initial deal to list the company. I remember Andre De Villers, the first CEO and founder of Thera, he had millions of shares of Thera back in the days, but was attributed these shares as the founder of the company. Also, a wise financial principle is to not be overinvested in the company where you work. If something very bad happen, you lose your job, and a good chunk of your wealth. Not a good idea. And again, they all have enough options to become rich if something great happen. On top of it, they own the stock.