‘Most Americans Today Believe the Stock Market Is Rigged, and They’re Right’ New research shows insider trading is everywhere. So far, no one seems to care.
Jimmy Filler made his considerable wealth buying and selling scrap metal in Birmingham, Ala. Now approaching 80 and mostly retired from business, he has dabbled as a collector of antique cars and casino memorabilia, acquired a 20,000-square-foot mansion in the hills outside the city, and donated $1 million to help build a practice facility for the University of Alabama at Birmingham football team. This largesse has made Filler a big name in his hometown—but he’s an even bigger deal among a certain class of stock trader.
That’s because Filler has an incredible track record buying shares in the companies he advises and invests in. Of the 496 trades he’s made since 2014 in Alabama’s ServisFirst Bancshares Inc., where he sits on the board of directors, and Century Bancorp Inc. of Massachusetts, where he’s the largest shareholder, 372 of them, or 75%, have shown a profit three months later. That’s the kind of run the world’s best stockpickers dream of, the financial equivalent of making the final table of the World Series of Poker main event in consecutive years.
Filler is the most successful corporate insider in the U.S., according to TipRanks, a data company that rates executives by how good they are at timing trades. As a result of this status, every time Filler buys a share in ServisFirst or Century, 2,699 TipRanks subscribers get an alert. Some of them, assuming Filler’s past performance will continue, follow suit and buy some stock for themselves.
In the U.S., an insider is defined as a senior executive, board member, or any shareholder who owns 10% or more of a company. There are about 82,000 of them, and every time they trade they’re required by law to file a disclosure, known as a Form 4, within two days. These filings can be viewed on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website, but scores are added each day, and most don’t offer much insight. “You have to know where to look,” says TipRanks Chief Executive Officer Uri Gruenbaum. Directors typically receive a proportion of their compensation in stock options, giving them the right to buy shares at a set price before a certain date, so if an executive is simply exercising an expiring option, it probably doesn’t reveal a great deal about how he views the company’s prospects. Selling may not tell you much either, because there are all sorts of reasons an insider might want to cash out—to buy a boat, for instance. It’s when insiders use their own funds to buy stock on the open market that it’s most worth paying attention.