In the last year, many General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) insiders sold a substantial stake in the company which may have sparked shareholders' attention. When evaluating insider transactions, knowing whether insiders are buying is usually more beneficial than knowing whether they are selling, as the latter can be open to many interpretations. However, shareholders should take a deeper look if several insiders are selling stock over a specific time period.

Although we don't think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions, logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares.

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General Motors Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

In the last twelve months, the biggest single sale by an insider was when the Chairman & CEO, Mary Barra, sold US$16m worth of shares at a price of US$53.16 per share. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. The good news is that this large sale was at well above current price of US$45.14. So it is hard to draw any strong conclusion from it.

Over the last year, we can see that insiders have bought 37.00k shares worth US$1.7m. But insiders sold 1.16m shares worth US$55m. In total, General Motors insiders sold more than they bought over the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

See our latest analysis for General Motors

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General Motors Insiders Bought Stock Recently

It's good to see that General Motors insiders have made notable investments in the company's shares. We can see that insider Alfred Kelly paid US$608k for shares in the company. No-one sold. This makes one think the business has some good points.

Insider Ownership

Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. It appears that General Motors insiders own 0.2% of the company, worth about US$93m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

What Might The Insider Transactions At General Motors Tell Us?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. However, the longer term transactions are not so encouraging. While recent transactions indicate confidence in General Motors, insiders don't own enough of the company to overcome our cautiousness about the longer term transactions. So they seem pretty well aligned, overall. So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. When we did our research, we found 2 warning signs for General Motors (1 is concerning!) that we believe deserve your full attention.

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For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.