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Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) shareholders (or potential shareholders) will be happy to see that the CEO & Director, Sarah London, recently bought a whopping US$1.9m worth of stock, at a price of US$62.60. Not only is that a big swing, but it increased their holding size by 11%, which is definitely great to see.
View our latest analysis for Centene
Centene Insider Transactions Over The Last Year
In fact, the recent purchase by Sarah London was the biggest purchase of Centene shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at above the current price of US$62.55. Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price.
In the last twelve months Centene insiders were buying shares, but not selling. Their average price was about US$70.94. This is nice to see since it implies that insiders might see value around current prices. 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!
There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).
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. Centene insiders own about US$246m worth of shares (which is 0.7% of the company). I like to see this level of insider ownership, because it increases the chances that management are thinking about the best interests of shareholders.
So What Do The Centene Insider Transactions Indicate?
The recent insider purchases are heartening. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. When combined with notable insider ownership, these factors suggest Centene insiders are well aligned, and quite possibly think the share price is too low. Nice! While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. While conducting our analysis, we found that Centene has 1 warning sign and it would be unwise to ignore this.