Director Of Alphabet Trades $38M In Company Stock

Sergey Brin, Director at Alphabet GOOG, made a large buy and sell of company shares on October 11, according to a new SEC filing.

What Happened: A Form 4 filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that Sergey Brin exercised options to purchase 13,889 Alphabet shares for $0 on October 11. They then sold their shares on the same day in the open market. They sold at prices ranging from $2,778 to $2,812 to raise a total of $38,865,376 from the stock sale.

Following the transaction, Brin still owns 18,979,712 shares of Alphabet worth $52,159,807,272.

Alphabet shares are trading up 0.51% at $2748.19 at the time of this writing on Wednesday morning.

Why Insider Transactions Are Important

Insider transactions shouldn't be used primarily to make an investing decision, however an insider transaction can be an important factor in the investing decision.

In legal terms, an "insider" refers to any shareholder who owns at least 10% of a company. This can include executives in the c-suite and large hedge funds. These insiders are required to let the public know of their transactions via a Form 4 filing, which must be filed within two business days of the transaction.

When a company insider makes a new purchase, that is an indication that they expect the stock to rise.

Insider sells, on the other hand, can be made for a variety of reasons, and may not necessarily mean that the seller thinks the stock will go down.

Important Transaction Codes

Investors prefer focusing on transactions that take place in the open market, indicated in Table I of the Form 4 filing. A P in Box 3 indicates a purchase, while S indicates a sale. Transaction code C indicates the conversion of an option, and transaction code A indicates the insider may have been forced to sell shares in order to receive compensation that had been promised upon being hired by the company.

Check Out The Full List Of Alphabet's Insider Trades.