Many Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited (HKG:371) insiders ditched their stock over the past year, which may be of interest to the company's shareholders. Knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more helpful when evaluating insider transactions, as insider selling can have various explanations. However, shareholders should take a deeper look if several insiders are selling stock over a specific time period.

Although we don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

View our latest analysis for Beijing Enterprises Water Group

Beijing Enterprises Water Group Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider sale was by the VP & Executive Director, Haifeng Li, for HK$36m worth of shares, at about HK$1.80 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to take some cash off the table, even below the current price of HK$2.39. As a general rule we consider it to be discouraging when insiders are selling below the current price, because it suggests they were happy with a lower valuation. However, while insider selling is sometimes discouraging, it's only a weak signal. This single sale was 89% of Haifeng Li's stake.

Insiders in Beijing Enterprises Water Group didn't buy any shares in the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

If you like to buy stocks that insiders are buying, rather than selling, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: Most of them are flying under the radar).

Does Beijing Enterprises Water Group Boast High Insider Ownership?

Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Beijing Enterprises Water Group insiders own about HK$889m worth of shares (which is 3.7% of the company). Most shareholders would be happy to see this sort of insider ownership, since it suggests that management incentives are well aligned with other shareholders.

So What Do The Beijing Enterprises Water Group Insider Transactions Indicate?

It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded Beijing Enterprises Water Group shares in the last quarter. It's heartening that insiders own plenty of stock, but we'd like to see more insider buying, since the last year of Beijing Enterprises Water Group insider transactions don't fill us with confidence. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. While conducting our analysis, we found that Beijing Enterprises Water Group has 2 warning signs and it would be unwise to ignore these.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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