According to cnn.com, John Keister, the president and chief operating officer Marchex Inc. sold 22,000 shares of common stock under a prearranged trading plan, on Thursday and Friday for $10.36 to $10.56 a share.
The stock sale was conducted under a prearranged trading plan which allows a company insider to set up a program in advance for such transactions and proceed with them even if he or she comes into possession of material nonpublic information.
If he had a ton of confidence in the stock, he would have pulled out of the pre-arranged deal, most likely.
2008 is here and so is the recession, even though it is not official, and I bet he did not want to get caught holding his nuts in a cold wind. Marchex has not exactly blown the drawers off of Wallstreet stock analysts either, or much less performed exceptionally.
Johnny
I don’t agree with your premise that just because an insider is selling stock in a company he is invovled in, means he thinks the stock is overpriced.
Today the stock is right at $10 so he did get .30-.50 higher for the shares he sold last week.
However, the other question would be how many shares does he still own?, and how many others is he scheduled to sell.
If you own a substantial portion of your assets in a single asset, its not a bad idea to take some money off the table and divest regardless of what your opinion of the future of the company is.