Insider buying declined last week with insiders buying $174.82 million of stock compared to $182.33 million in the week prior. Selling on the other hand more than quadrupled with insiders selling $2.08 billion of stock last week compared to $472.75 million in the week prior.

Sell/Buy Ratio: The insider Sell/Buy ratio is calculated by dividing the total insider sales in a given week by total insider purchases that week. The adjusted ratio for last week went up to 11.89. In other words, insiders sold almost 12 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 2.59. We are calculating an adjusted ratio by removing transactions by funds and companies and trying as best as possible only to retain information about insiders and 10% owners who are not funds or companies.

Insider Sell Buy Ratio July 31, 2015

Note: As mentioned in the first post in this series, certain industries have their preferred metrics such as same store sales for retailers, funds from operations (FFO) for REITs and revenue per available room (RevPAR) for hotels that provide a better basis for comparison than simple valuation metrics. However metrics like Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Enterprise Value/EBITDA included below should provide a good starting point for analyzing the majority of stocks.

Notable Insider Buys:

1. Biogen Inc. (BIIB): $318.78

Director Stelios Papadopoulos acquired 10,000 shares of this biotech company, paying $304.88 per share for a total amount of $3.05 million. 5,000 of these shares were purchased indirectly by Esperanza Holdings and another 5,000 shares were purchased indirectly by Stelios Holdings.

You can view the list of recent insider transactions for Biogen Inc. here.

P/E: 21.59 Forward P/E: 18 Industry P/E: N/A P/S: 7.24 Price/Book: 5.93 EV/EBITDA: 13.03 Market Cap: $74.97B Avg. Daily Volume: 1,917,070 52 Week Range: $290.85 – $480.18

2. QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM): $64.39

Shares of this wireless equipment manufacturer were acquired by 3 insiders:

Chief Executive Officer Steven M. Mollenkopf acquired 15,815 shares, paying $63.31 per share for a total amount of $1 million. These shares were purchased indirectly by a trust.

EVP & Chief Financial Officer George S. Davis acquired 8,100 shares, paying $62.34 per share for a total amount of $504,954. These shares were purchased indirectly by a trust.

Director Mark D. McLaughlin acquired 5,650 shares, paying $61.63 per share for a total amount of $348,207. These shares were purchased indirectly by a trust.