Over the past year, many Terex Corporation (NYSE:TEX) insiders sold a significant stake in the company which may have piqued investors' interest. Knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more helpful when evaluating insider transactions, as insider selling can have various explanations. However, if numerous insiders are selling, shareholders should investigate more.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Terex

The President of Terex Materials Processing, Kieran Hegarty, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$1.1m worth of shares at a price of US$58.43 each. We generally don't like to see insider selling, but the lower the sale price, the more it concerns us. The silver lining is that this sell-down took place above the latest price (US$40.39). So it may not tell us anything about how insiders feel about the current share price.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid US$2.8m for 53.64k shares. On the other hand they divested 72.81k shares, for US$4.3m. Over the last year we saw more insider selling of Terex shares, than buying. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

See our latest analysis for Terex

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Insiders At Terex Have Bought Stock Recently

Over the last quarter, Terex insiders have spent a meaningful amount on shares. In total, insiders bought US$54k worth of shares in that time, and we didn't record any sales whatsoever. This makes one think the business has some good points.

Does Terex Boast High Insider Ownership?

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. Terex insiders own about US$67m worth of shares. That equates to 2.5% of the company. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.

So What Do The Terex Insider Transactions Indicate?

The recent insider purchases are heartening. However, the longer term transactions are not so encouraging. The more recent transactions are a positive, but Terex insiders haven't shown the sustained enthusiasm that we look for, although they do own a decent number of shares, overall. So they seem pretty well aligned, overall. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Terex. Case in point: We've spotted 3 warning signs for Terex you should be aware of, and 1 of these is concerning.

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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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