Toll Founders Rang Register's High Notes

It's good to see those investors bear no ill will. On the contrary, they reached into their wallets last year to help pay Robert Toll a $17.5 million bonus. This is why I love America.

The Toll brothers may have had many reasons for their stock sales. Both retain big stakes in their company, even if these are not as big as they once were. A company spokeswoman told me at the time that the brothers, who are in their 60s, were "rebalancing" their portfolios.

Indeed. So, it seems, were the people who bought the shares. Downward. They just didn't know it at the time.

What makes this especially interesting is that Bruce Toll has begun selling stock again. The brothers suspended their sales in the autumn of 2005 as the stock collapsed. They stayed off the phone with their brokers through the summer of last year.

Then the sector began to rally on hopes -- ardently fanned on Wall Street -- that the housing market had "bottomed out."

Since September, as the shares have risen, Bruce has cashed out another $47 million. That includes nearly $16 million just before Christmas and almost $7 million at the end of January.

The important backstory to this is that Toll Brothers isn't some second-rate outfit. It's an outstanding company, the market leader in building million-dollar homes, and it has been a tremendous success for decades.