There aren’t any surefire ways to tell if the stock market, and perhaps the rest of the economy, is about to take a nosedive. That’s because millions of people with millions of ideas are involved, so it’s an inherently unpredictable system. However, there are certain players in our economy that have a lot more influence and insider knowledge than the rest of us. So when they make a move in unison, you know there’s a good chance that something is about to go down.

And that’s exactly what’s going on with the stock market right now. The people who would stand to lose the most if the markets crashed; the corporate executives and insiders, are all jumping ship and selling their stocks.

As the investing public has continued to devour stocks, sending all three major indexes to record highs in the last few months, corporate insiders have been offloading shares to an extent not seen in seven years. Selling totaled $10 billion in March, according to data compiled by Trim Tabs.

It’s a troubling trend facing an equity market that’s already grappling with its loftiest valuations since the 2000 tech bubble. If the people with the deepest knowledge of a company are cashing out, why should investors keep buying at current prices?

The groundswell of insider selling has the attention of Brad Lamensdorf, portfolio manager at Ranger Alternative Management, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

“This is definitely a negative sign,” Lamensdorf wrote in his April newsletter. “They do not see value in their own companies!”

And this isn’t a recent trend. While ordinary investors were optimistically diving into the stock market after Trump was elected, these people were dumping their stocks as far back as February.

Chief executives and other corporate insiders are selling stock hand over fist now that the quarterly earnings season is over, a report from Vickers Weekly Insider shows. Transactions by insiders are restricted around a company’s report.

“Insider selling has jumped again, and this time to levels rarely seen,” analyst David Coleman wrote in Monday’s note.

In the last week, insiders’ sale transactions on the NYSE outnumbered their purchase transactions by more than 11 to 1, according to Vickers, a publication of Argus Research. The 11.47 reading is 3.5 standard deviations above the mean, according to Coleman.

Clearly, they know something that most Americans don’t. I’d wager that they know the stock market can’t keep reaching record highs indefinitely, they know the economy is resting on shaky ground, and they know that this sudden surge of investments in the stock market is their last chance to make a killing before the whole thing comes crashing down.

This article has been contributed by SHTF Plan. Visit www.SHTFplan.com for alternative news, commentary and preparedness info.

Source: “They Know Something That We Don’t” – Corporate Insiders Are Unloading Their Stocks Like There’s No Tomorrow | Survival

Despite the recent modest profit-taking in the S&P 500, the market – just shy of its all time high 2,400 level – remains in nosebleed valuation territory.

As Bank of America calculates, in March the S&P 500 forward P/E was little-changed amid a flat month for stocks, and at 17.5x continues to trade at its highest levels since 2002 (on a trailing basis P/E is at 19.6 and 29.0 based on the Shiller PE). This is almost one turn higher since we last performed a similar valuation exercise back in December.

Hardly a bargain, stocks remain stretched vs. history on the majority of metrics Bank of America tracks (Table 2) and as Savita Subramanian points out, the only way stocks still look cheap is relative to bonds. While BofA is quick to warn that today’s elevated valuations suggest longer-term caution on stocks, it reminds clients that “valuations typically matter little in the final stage of a bull market during which sentiment and positioning are the key drivers of returns.” This is also known as the so-called “just buy everything” cop out.

Stripping away BofA’s subjective commentary, to allow readers to decide for themselves whether stocks are massively overvalued and overbought, or perhaps cheap, here is a breakdown of the S&P 500 across a wide variety of valuation measures — 20 in total — to gauge whether US stocks look cheap vs. history.  What the analysis shows is that of 20 metrics, the S&P is overvalued based on 18 by as much as 85% (on a historical market cap to GDP basis) and up to 105% if looking at the S&P in WTI terms, and is cheap only according Price to Free Cash Flow (25.1x vs 28.4x) which however is a function of ultra low interest rates, and also based on a ratio of the S&P-to-Russell 2000 fwd PE multiples. A third metric which last December suggested stocks were “cheap“, namely trailing normalized PE (19.6x vs 19.0x average) flipped to “rich” in the past 5 months…

Source: Just How Overvalued Is The Market? Here Are 20 Metrics To Help You Decide | Zero Hedge

By Michael Synder

S&P 500 tech stocks have now fallen for 9 days in a row.  The last time tech stocks declined for so many days in a row was in 2012, and that was the only other time in history when we have seen such a long losing streak.  As I have stated before, the post-election “Trump rally” is officially done, and the market is starting to roll over as investors begin to realize that all of the buying momentum has completely evaporated.  Tech stocks tend to be particularly volatile, and so the fact that they are starting to lead the way down should definitely be alarming to many in the investing community.

Of course it isn’t just tech stocks that are falling.  The Dow was down another 59 points on Wednesday, and the S&P 500 has closed beneath its 50 day moving average for the very first time since the election.  For those that have been waiting for a key technical signal before getting out of the market, there is one for you.

The price of gold was up again, and that is definitely not surprising in this geopolitical environment.  The closer we get to war the higher gold and silver prices will go, and if we actually get into a major conflict we will see them blast into the stratosphere.

Another key indicator that I am watching very closely is the VIX.  On Wednesday it shot up above 16 for the very first time since the day after Trump’s election victory, and many believe that it could soon go much higher.  The following is an excerpt from a CNBC report…

The VIX measures the size of the S&P 500’s expected moves over the next 30 days, and consequently tends to run just a bit hotter than volatility over the past 30 days. Yet one-month realized vola…

Source: Panic Begins to Grip the Market; Tech Stocks Experience Longest Losing Streak in 5 Years | Markets