Data Insights

Three stocks insiders are buying and selling: ANZ, Northern Star and Aus Finance

Tue 20 Dec 22, 2:31pm (AEDT)
Stock market screen with red and green price changes
Source: iStock

Key Points

  • Northern Star CEO sold 16% of his holdings
  • ANZ CEO adds almost $1 million to his existing $13.3 million stake
  • Australian Finance CEO sells amid a sharp downturn for the company's shares

A summary of the top director transactions from Monday, 12 December to Friday, 16 December. You can find out more about why director transactions are a big deal here.

In short: Research shows that insiders buy more when their stocks are cheap and buy less when they are expensive.

Top 10 insider moves by value

Ticker

Company

Date

Director

Type

Price

Value

Notes

TKL

Traka Resources Ltd

12/12/2022

Joshua Pitt

Buy

$0.74

$4,067,772

On-market trade.

NST

Northern Star Resources Ltd

16/12/2022

Stuart Tonkin

Sell

$10.74

$2,396,222

On-market trade.

ANZ

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd

12/12/2022

Shayne Elliott

Buy

$23.54

$948,944

On-market trade.

AFG

Australian Finance Group Ltd

13/12/2022

Malcolm Watkins

Sell

$1.52

$608,157

On-market trade.

RGN

Region Group

14/12/2022

Mark Fleming

Sell

$2.78

$300,102

On-market trade.

PTX

Prescient Therapeutics Ltd

14/12/2022

Steven Yatomi-Clarke

Exercise

$0.14

$270,000

Exercise of options.

AUC

Ausgold Ltd

14/12/2022

Richard Lockwood

Buy

$0.05

$120,083

On-market trade.

RGN

Region Group

16/12/2022

Mark Fleming

Buy

$2.77

$110,800

On-market trade.

CDM

Cadence Capital Ltd

12/12/2022

Karl Siegling

Buy

$0.92

$102,429

On-market trade.

Interesting observations

Northern Star CEO selldown

CEO Stuart Tonkin sold approximately 16% (~223,000 shares) of his overall stake in Northern Star. He retains ~1.16 million shares post selldown, or approximately 0.1% of the company.

Northern Star shares are up around 55% since September and rallied close to levels not seen since February 2021.

Most broker notes from December were neutral-related on Northern Star.

  • UBS downgraded to NEUTRAL from Buy with a $11.10 target price

  • Macquarie is OUTPERFORM rated with a $12.00 target price

  • Morgan Stanley is EQUAL-WEIGHT rated with a $10.90 target price

NST chart
Northern Star chart since Feb 2020 (Source: TradingView)

ANZ CEO loads up

CEO Shayne Elliot purchased an additional 3,834 ANZ shares, doubling his direct holdings to 7,417 (approximately $176,800 at today's share price). Indirectly, Mr Elliot holds 558,812 shares ($13.3 million) via employee share plans and trustees.

ANZ shares are down -4.2% year-to-date but up 13.5% from June lows.

The latest broker notes date back to October, where most were Buy rated.

  • UBS is BUY rated with a $30.00 target price

  • Credit Suisse is OUTPERFORM rated with a $29.00 target price

  • Ord Minnett is ACCUMULATE rated with a $27.10 target price

  • Including other target prices from Morgans, Macquarie, Citi and Morgan Stanley, the average target price sits at $27.54

ANZ chart
ANZ year-to-date chart (Source: TradingView)

Australian Finance CEO lets go at lows

Founding Director Malcolm Watkins sold 400,000 of the ~16,000,000 indirect shares held via his family trust. Interestingly, he's decided to sell a parcel while the company's shares are down -45% year-to-date and trading at close to levels not seen since May 2020.

AFG chart
Australian Finance Group 5-year chart (Source: TradingView)

An error by Traka

Traka is a $6.2m market cap gold junior working towards unlocking the potential of the Mt Cattlin Project in WA. For a director to buy a little over two-thirds of the company's market value just doesn't quite make sense.

The numbers all add up in the 'Change of Director's Interest Notice'. However, the announcement states that he bought the shares at an average of $0.74. Perhaps it was supposed to say $0.0074.

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Written By

Kerry Sun

Content Strategist

Kerry holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University. He is an avid swing trader, focused on technical set ups and breakouts. Outside of writing and trading, Kerry is a big UFC fan, loves poker and training Muay Thai. Connect via LinkedIn or email.

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