How Much Are Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. (NYSE:MCB) Insiders Taking Off The Table?

We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. On the other hand, we'd be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So shareholders might well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. (NYSE:MCB).

What Is Insider Buying?

It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Columbia University study found that 'insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own company’s stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers'.

See our latest analysis for Metropolitan Bank Holding

Metropolitan Bank Holding Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider sale was by the President, Mark DeFazio, for US$114k worth of shares, at about US$50.61 per share. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. The silver lining is that this sell-down took place above the latest price (US$33.63). So it is hard to draw any strong conclusion from it.

In the last twelve months insiders purchased 8.82k shares for US$199k. But insiders sold 6.55k shares worth US$324k. All up, insiders sold more shares in Metropolitan Bank Holding than they bought, over the last year. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

I will like Metropolitan Bank Holding better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying.

Insider Ownership of Metropolitan Bank Holding

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Metropolitan Bank Holding insiders own about US$17m worth of shares. That equates to 6.1% of the company. 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 Metropolitan Bank Holding Tell Us?

There haven't been any insider transactions in the last three months -- that doesn't mean much. Still, the insider transactions at Metropolitan Bank Holding in the last 12 months are not very heartening. But we do like the fact that insiders own a fair chunk of the company. Therefore, you should definitely take a look at this FREE report showing analyst forecasts for Metropolitan Bank Holding.

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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