Top Insider Trades: Liberty Media Turns Up Dial On Sirius XM Radio ...

In a victory for common sense, the trading behavior of company executives, directors, and large shareholders in the stocks of firms they're registered "insiders" at have been proven profitable to monitor by both academic studies and (more importantly) the experience of your fellow professional investors.

Below are lists of the top 10 mainly open-market insider purchases and sales filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday, November 16, 2012 as ranked by dollar value.

Please note, however, that these are factual lists, not buy and sell recommendations. Dollar value is only one metric to assess the importance of an insider transaction, and, frankly, often not even the most important metric that determines if an insider transaction is significant.

Liberty Media (NASDAQ:LMCA), chaired by John C. Malone, has turned up the dial on its Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) stake, making an open market buy of $82.4 million in the satellite radio company. Now holding 49.8%, LMCA is simply awaiting a go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission to take over official control of its former affiliate. Malone has been a director of Sirius since April 2009. The investment firm managing the majority of Bill Gates' fortune, Cascade Investments, continues to stock up on Republic Services (NYSE:RSG). With its most recent acquisition of $31.2 million in the non-hazardous waste company, its stake is now over 23%.

WisdomTree Investments' (NASDAQ:WETF) president, CEO, and director, Jonathan L. Steinberg, sold $93 million worth of the asset management company's stock on the open market, according to the SEC. Also cashing out is RRE Venture Capital, an early backer of WETF, which sold $93.1 million worth of the company's stock. Over the past year, no company insiders have purchased stock. WisdomTree focuses on exchange-traded funds.

At InsiderInsights.com, we find new investment ideas just about every day using these and more intricate insider screens to determine where we should focus our subsequent fundamental and technical analysis. And while stocks don't (or shouldn't) move up or down based on insider activity alone, insiders tend to be good indicators of when real stock-moving events like earnings surprises, corporate actions, and new products may be in the offing.

Source:?InsiderInsights.com?|?Key to Insider Title and Trans Type Codes

Source:?InsiderInsights.com?|?Key to Insider Title and Trans Type Codes

Editor's note: Jonathan Moreland is the founder of Insider Insights and author of "Profit From Legal Insider Trading."

No positions in stocks mentioned.

Source: http://www.minyanville.com/trading-and-investing/etfs/articles/Top-Insider-Trades253A-Liberty-Media-Turns/11/19/2012/id/45937

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