How to read insider transactions
Listed companies must publish every share trade their managers make. Most of these filings are routine. A few are worth your attention. This page explains how to tell them apart, and what Vireo does with each filing.
What is disclosed
Under the EU and UK Market Abuse Regulation (MAR, Article 19), people discharging managerial responsibilities (directors, the CEO, other senior managers) and the people closely associated with them must report their transactions in the company's shares. The company then publishes each report.
A report has to be made within three business days of the trade, once a person's transactions in the calendar year reach a threshold (€5,000 under EU MAR; a national regulator can raise it to €20,000). Vireo reads these reports from the official sources: Finland's oam.fi, Sweden's Finansinspektionen register and the UK National Storage Mechanism.
Bought on the open market: the signal
When an executive buys shares on the open market, they pay the market price with their own money. Nobody required it. That is why open-market buys are the strongest signal in this data: the people with the best view of the business chose to own more of it.
Look at the size relative to the person's role, whether several insiders are buying in the same weeks, and whether the same person keeps buying. One small purchase says little. Repeated or clustered buying says more.
Compensation is not conviction
Many filings look like purchases but are pay: share awards, vesting of incentive plans, option exercises and option grants. The executive did not decide to invest; the shares were part of their remuneration. Vireo labels these separately and keeps them out of the buy/sell read.
All-employee share plans are a special case. In a UK Share Incentive Plan or a Nordic share-savings programme, a fixed amount is taken from salary every month and invested automatically, often with free matching shares from the company. Vireo shows these as "Bought via share plan", not as open-market buys.
Coordinated purchases
When three or more insiders at one company buy on the same day at exactly the same price, the purchase was executed as one coordinated order, usually a programme or a placement. Vireo marks these and leaves them out of the conviction read, because no single person decided the timing.
Sales mean less than buys
Executives sell for many reasons: taxes on vested shares, buying a home, diversifying. A single sale is weak evidence on its own. Large sales by several insiders at once, outside the usual vesting calendar, are worth a closer look.
Closely associated persons
A spouse, a family trust or a holding company controlled by a manager files under the same rules. Vireo shows the filer by name with "Closely associated with" and the manager they are linked to, so the trade counts towards that manager without presenting the filer as an insider.
Timing
Managers may not trade during the closed period, the 30 days before an interim or annual report. Buying usually happens in the windows after results. A report can arrive up to three business days after the trade, so the transaction date and the publication date often differ.
What Vireo does with each filing
Every new filing is parsed, attributed to the right person and company, and classified within minutes of publication. If you follow a company, you get one plain-language email per filing. Anything Vireo cannot read with certainty is left out rather than guessed.
Vireo is an information service, not investment advice. The data is public and provided for information only.