It is usually uneventful when a single insider buys stock. However, When quite a few insiders buy shares, as it happened in e-therapeutics plc's (LON:ETX) case, it's fantastic news for shareholders.

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 e-therapeutics

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At e-therapeutics

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by CEO & Director Ahmad Mortazavi for UK£100k worth of shares, at about UK£0.36 per share. That means that even when the share price was higher than UK£0.19 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when insiders have purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price.

In the last twelve months e-therapeutics insiders were buying shares, but not selling. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. e-therapeutics insiders own about UK£60m worth of shares (which is 61% 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 e-therapeutics Insider Transactions Indicate?

It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded e-therapeutics shares in the last quarter. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. With high insider ownership and encouraging transactions, it seems like e-therapeutics insiders think the business has merit. 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. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for e-therapeutics (of which 1 doesn't sit too well with us!) you should know about.