Stocks Still Steep for Insiders

Although some analysts think stocks are cheap after a monthlong slide, corporate insiders seem to disagree.

After the recent big drop in the major averages, several analysts have declared that stocks are now attractively priced. Indeed, the price-to-earnings ratio on the S&P 500 is currently sitting at an eight-year low, and many technology stocks have seen their multiples contract sharply.

"According to our valuation model, equities are precisely as undervalued as they were overvalued in December 2000," wrote TrendMacrolytics analyst Donald Luskin in a recent note.

The S&P is now trading at 17.6 times trailing 12-month earnings, the lowest level since 1996, according to Merrill Lynch. And Luskin said the technology sector is "as undervalued as it's been at any time since the October 2002 bottom, and is undervalued even relative to the standards of the conservative pre-1996 era."

Some companies seem to think their stocks are a bargain, too. However, plans to buy back stock don't always come to fruition, and the recent actions of corporate insiders suggest this might not be such a good time to get into the market.

Jonathan Moreland, publisher of the newsletter Insider Insights, said his weekly insider buy/sell ratio ended last week at negative 80%, indicating that there were 80% more companies seeing insider sales than insider purchases.

"There were only 178 companies with buyers, and 320 with sellers," he said. "This hardly represented insiders jumping out of the woodwork to take advantage of obvious bargains."

The Nasdaq fell 1.8% last week and is down almost 11% since the end of June. The S&P 500 also fell more than 1% last week and just closed at a new low for the year, as investors worry about decelerating profit growth, high oil prices and the possibility of rising interest rates.