Have Insiders Sold Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) Shares Recently?

Investors may wish to note that the Independent Director of Discover Financial Services, Mary Bush, recently netted US$95k from selling stock, receiving an average price of US$49.23. However we note that the sale only shrunk their holding by 3.3%.

Check out our latest analysis for Discover Financial Services

Discover Financial Services Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the insider, Glenn Schneider, sold US$1.1m worth of shares at a price of US$74.21 per share. While we don't usually like to see insider selling, it's more concerning if the sales take place at a lower price. The silver lining is that this sell-down took place above the latest price (US$48.72). So it may not shed much light on insider confidence at current levels.

Over the last year, we can see that insiders have bought 37.43k shares worth US$2.3m. But they sold 17.91k shares for US$1.3m. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by Discover Financial Services insiders. They paid about US$62.35 on average. These transactions suggest that insiders have considered the current price attractive. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. It appears that Discover Financial Services insiders own 0.6% of the company, worth about US$93m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

What Might The Insider Transactions At Discover Financial Services Tell Us?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. Given that insiders also own a fair bit of Discover Financial Services we think they are probably pretty confident of a bright future. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Discover Financial Services. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Discover Financial Services you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

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