American Woodmark Insider Lowered Holding By 16% During Last Year

Looking at American Woodmark Corporation's (NASDAQ:AMWD ) insider transactions over the last year, we can see that insiders were net sellers. That is, there were more number of shares sold by insiders than there were purchased.

While insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing, we do think it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing.

See our latest analysis for American Woodmark

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At American Woodmark

The Independent Director, James Davis, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$374k worth of shares at a price of US$84.33 each. 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$73.22). So it may not shed much light on insider confidence at current levels. James Davis was the only individual insider to sell shares in the last twelve months.

James Davis sold a total of 5.75k shares over the year at an average price of US$82.53. 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!

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American Woodmark Insiders Are Selling The Stock

Over the last three months, we've seen significant insider selling at American Woodmark. In total, Independent Director James Davis sold US$475k worth of shares in that time, and we didn't record any purchases whatsoever. Overall this makes us a bit cautious, but it's not the be all and end all.

Insider Ownership

Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. It appears that American Woodmark insiders own 1.2% of the company, worth about US$13m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.

So What Do The American Woodmark Insider Transactions Indicate?

An insider hasn't bought American Woodmark stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. And our longer term analysis of insider transactions didn't bring confidence, either. While insiders do own shares, they don't own a heap, and they have been selling. So we'd only buy after careful consideration. While it's good to be aware of what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. While conducting our analysis, we found that American Woodmark has 1 warning sign and it would be unwise to ignore it.

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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 of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.