Insiders Ring the Cash Register

There’s an old Wall Street saying: “They don’t ring a bell at the top.”

But that’s not entirely true. Corporate executives are ringing – the cash register.

They’ve become record sellers of shares of the companies they operate:

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That sea of red isn’t the stock market – yet – it’s company insiders heading for the exit (Source: Bloomberg)

In the most recent week, there were a total of 200 insider transactions, as measured by Form 4 filings with the SEC. Only 2, or a mere 1%, were buys.

That’s a sharp contrast to just over 100 days ago, when insiders got bullish on their company’s own prospects amid the fearful fallout of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement and market crash.

“Insiders have many reasons to sell,” notes our Portfolio Director Andrew Packer, who has – literally – written the book on the subject. “They may want to pay off a mortgage, put a kid through college – or may even be financing a divorce. Insiders only buy for one reason – they find their shares a compelling value here.”

“Typically, you’d expect insiders to be sellers about 75% of the time. It’s part of their compensation. Today’s ratio is totally out of whack.”

If only 1% of corporate insiders – the CEOs, CFOs, and other high-level employees – are considering buying here, but 99% are selling, that’s at odds with retail investors, who are doing the opposite.

We’ve seen this level of insider selling before – in 1999 at the height of the dotcom boom. So we’re not in uncharted territory.

With insiders ringing the cash register, it’s a sign we’re in the late stages of a bull market – and investors may be on a crash course with higher volatility.

~ Addison

P.S. from stocks to crypto: Grey Swan Live! returns Thursday at 2 p.m. ET with Ian King.

Ian’s hot on an upcoming event that he forecasts will trigger a new crypto boom, sending the market cap of the space to $8.5 trillion by 2030. We’ll be looking at his latest moves in the cryptocurrency market – including the rise of Ethereum as the rally in bitcoin takes a pause. What’s it all mean? And where do we stand regarding President Trump’s plans for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve?

All that and more. Ian will also cover his list of the top token opportunities in the cryptocurrency space as this asset class continues to push higher and gain regulatory guidance.

Remember the new time!

Grey Swan Live! with Ian King will begin at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT tomorrow, Thursday, September 4, 2025.

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If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

There’s an old Wall Street saying: “They don’t ring a bell at the top.”

But that’s not entirely true. Corporate executives are ringing – the cash register.

They’ve become record sellers of shares of the companies they operate:

Turn Your Images On

That sea of red isn’t the stock market – yet – it’s company insiders heading for the exit (Source: Bloomberg)

In the most recent week, there were a total of 200 insider transactions, as measured by Form 4 filings with the SEC. Only 2, or a mere 1%, were buys.

“Typically, you’d expect insiders to be sellers about 75% of the time. It’s part of their compensation. Today’s ratio is totally out of whack.”

We’ve seen this level of insider selling before – in 1999 at the height of the dotcom boom. So we’re not in uncharted territory.

With insiders ringing the cash register, it’s a sign we’re in the late stages of a bull market – and investors may be on a crash course with higher volatility.

~ Addison

P.S. from stocks to crypto: Grey Swan Live! returns Thursday at 2 p.m. ET with Ian King.

All that and more. Ian will also cover his list of the top token opportunities in the cryptocurrency space as this asset class continues to push higher and gain regulatory guidance.

Remember the new time!

Grey Swan Live! with Ian King will begin at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT tomorrow, Thursday, September 4, 2025.

Turn Your Images On

If you have any questions for us about the market, send them our way now to: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com.

Mining stocks amplify everything. First Majestic went from losing money to 45% margins without building anything new. They just held the line on costs while silver did the heavy lifting.

That cuts both ways. If silver drops hard, margins compress just as fast. Same leverage, opposite direction.

The miners with the lowest costs and cleanest balance sheets will hold up best in a pullback and capture the most upside if the deficit keeps grinding.

Economists at Goldman Sachs said this morning they expect core inflation to finish the year around 2% even while GDP rises at a “surprisingly strong” 2.5% clip.

In our view, their inflation forecast is optimistic. Their GDP call? Modest.

The last time we pumped this much liquidity into the system — 2020 through 2022—the result was a manic asset bubble, runaway inflation, and an epic hangover at the Fed.

Goldman’s optimism has triggered a fresh round of bullish bets: cyclical stocks are rallying, “dispersion” in the S&P 500 is spiking, and the Fed is expected to cut interest rates twice before Jerome Powell gets kicked out of Washington at the end of his term on May 15.

Anecdotally, we’re hearing stories of warehouses full of GPUs sitting unused for lack of energy to power them. It’s a natural feature of the heavy capital investment in new machines. The grid has to catch up!

While Trump’s great reset rolls on in 2026, keep an eye on modular nuclear reactors and increased demand for uranium, natural gas and related resources.

These PM producers are literally printing the most ‘hard money’ that they ever have at these metals prices and record margins here at the midway point in Q4.

If there ever was a time for this sector to get overheated and frothy, this would be it… only that isn’t what we’ve seen playing out.

PM producers are still insanely profitable at even at current metals prices and should be far more valuable based on their margins, revenue generating potential, and their resources still in the ground.