The Company Is Buying, the Insiders Are Selling

Two decisions about the same price

A share buyback is a company using its cash to buy its own stock. Management usually presents it as a sign the shares are good value. At the same time, the same executives decide what to do with their own shares, and they report each sale on Form 4. When the company buys heavily and the people running it sell heavily, the two decisions point in opposite directions. This page lists those companies.

Buyback amounts are the cash a company reported paying to repurchase common stock in its latest full calendar year (mostly 2025), from the XBRL data in its 10-K and 10-Q filings. Insider amounts are open-market purchases on Form 4 since Feb 13, 2026, and sales by executives and directors (not by funds or companies that file because they own 10%, which often sell for their own investors). A company appears when its executives and directors sold at least $5 million, the sales equal at least 10% of the latest yearly buyback, and insiders bought less than a tenth of what they sold. The periods do not match exactly, so read it as "a company that has been buying back stock, whose insiders are now selling".

The other way round: company and insiders both buying

Companies that bought back stock while their insiders were net buyers, with at least $250,000 of insider purchases: RSG ($1.58B), JEF ($628.7M), LEN ($595.3M), CRBG ($339.5M), GPI ($211.5M), WRB ($158.4M), TTD ($148.1M), CPNG ($136.6M), BORR ($73.4M), SVC ($50.3M), AVO ($48.0M), KKR ($45.7M), CAR ($40.1M), MGM ($37.2M), SONO ($35.3M).

How to read it

This is a question, not an accusation. Executives receive much of their pay in stock and sell it for ordinary reasons: taxes, a house, spreading their wealth. Many sales are set up months in advance under 10b5-1 trading plans. And a buyback can be the right use of cash even when insiders sell. Still, the contrast is worth noticing. If a board decides the stock is cheap enough to spend billions on, and the people who know the company best keep selling at that price, investors can fairly ask which view is right. Where possible, check whether the sales were planned (the stock's insider page marks 10b5-1 sales) and how the buyback compares with the company's free cash flow.

Large, mature companies dominate the list simply because they buy back the most stock and pay executives the most in shares.

Examples

From the data: Snowflake Inc. reported spending $873.5M on buybacks in 2025. Since Feb 13, 2026 its insiders have sold $1.15B of stock on the open market and bought $0.

Background: buybacks became the main way U.S. companies return cash to shareholders after the SEC adopted Rule 10b-18 in 1982, which gave companies a safe harbor for repurchasing their own shares. Since 2023 companies also pay a 1% federal excise tax on net buybacks under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Explain it like I'm 13

A lemonade stand owned by your whole class decides to use its money to buy back some shares, saying "our stand is a great deal." Meanwhile, the kids who run the stand are selling their own shares. Maybe they just need the money. But you would want to ask them why, before you believe the stand is a great deal.

See also the full buybacks and insider trading table and CEO pay versus performance.

Built from SEC Form 4 and 13F filings and STOCK Act reports as read by WallStPal, rebuilt every day. Prices are weekly closing prices derived from SEC data and can lag by a few weeks. Results describe what stocks did, not anyone's profit, and are not investment advice. See our method.