Insider Trades: Directors bought and sold shares in these 12 ASX 200 companies last week

Welcome back to the Insider Trades Series – A weekly summary of on-market ASX 200 director transactions valued at more than $10,000. The trades have all taken place between 17 and 23 May 2024. Directors have up to 5 business days to notify the ASX of their trades.

Top ASX 200 Director Sells

Interesting Takeaways

Wisetech: Wisetech's founder Richard White and co-founder Maree Isaacs have offloaded a collective $142.1 million worth of shares since mid April. While this might sound alarming, Mr White has the tendency to offload a few million dollars worth of shares throughout the year ... every year. He's sold almost $700 million worth of shares since 2020 but still owns approximately a third of the $33 billion company. The bottom line – Treat these selldowns as a non-event. Wisetech shares are up a cool 9.2% in the past month and 31% year-to-date.

Megaport: The $15.9 million sale from Founder and Chairman has spooked the stock, with Megaport shares down 6.3% over the next three sessions (from 23 May). This is against a backdrop where Nvidia announced blockbuster earnings, with quarterly net income up more than sevenfold to US$14.88 billion. This result earnings has resonated with a number of stocks in the semiconductor and AI space.

Top ASX 200 Insider Buys

Interesting Takeaways

Eagers Automotive: Eagers shares sold off 15% on Wednesday, 22 May after the company issued a downbeat trading update. The key takeaways from the announcement include:

• On track to deliver more than $11.0 billion in total revenue for 2024

• Expects underlying trading performance for the first half of 2024 to be approximately 85% of the underlying profit before tax of the prior period

In other words, the company expects negative growth for the first half of 2024. A number of brokers downgraded the stock, citing concerns of weakening automotive retail market, increased discounting across the industry and continued inflationary pressures. Citi analysts, for example, downgraded the stock from Neutral to SELL and cut its target price from $13.85 to $9.55.

Interestingly, Non-Executive Director Nicholas Politis bought another 200,000 shares on the day of the trading update. This brings his total exposure to 72.7 million shares. He's purchased 1.39 million ($14.9 million) worth of shares since 2020 but a vast majority of those purchases are now in negative territory.

Dicker Data: Dicker Data also experienced a sharp selloff following a softer-than-expected trading update. The stock finished the session (Friday, 17 May) down 13% to a seven-month low. Citi analysts viewed the numbers as a "delay to sales and not a structural change in DDR’s market position, which DDR expects to have slightly increased during the period." The company's COO Vladimir Mitnovetski and CFO Mary Stojcevski have both stepped up with on-market buys.