Original post:
The line is always "The sales were made as part of a previously established plan" or somesuch.
The stock is trading down $4.20 at $100.93 in pre-market trade.
The $2Bil. figure comes from SECForm4.com who inform us that the $141,767,086 proceeds bring Mr. Ahearns total take to $532,347,260. He has never made an open market purchase.
This is Mr. Ahearn's first sale since the May 15 and 16, 2008 sales, coincidently the dates of FSLR's all-time intra-day and closing highs, $315.43 and $311.14 respectively.
His highest executed price was $314.5.
As I said in another post, he should get down on his knees every morning to thank God for those German hausfraus who pay the solar feed-in tariff.
Here's the story from Tech Trader Daily:
First Solar Exec Chair Ahearn Sells 1.3M Shrs For $141.8 Million
First Solar (FSLR) Executive Chairman and former CEO Michael Ahearn over the last three days has sold 1.3 million of the company’s shares in the open market for gross proceeds of $141.8 million, according to a new filing with the SEC. The sales reduce his stake in the company to a little over 1.7 million shares.
The shares were sold at prices ranging from $104 to $114.81, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The shares sold represent about 1.5% of the company’s total shares outstanding.
Ahearn gave up the CEO job at First Solar last fall, in favor of former Honeywell exec Robert Gillette; the company had announced in April 2009 that it had begun searching for a replacement for Ahearn, who planned to focus on lobby for changes in government energy policy....MORE
Three weeks after those 2008 sales we posted:
Jim Cramer Blow's Smoke on First Solar (FSLR)
...As recently as May 28 Cramer was singing FSLR's praises.
"Applied Materials and First Solar: Jim Cramer Likes Both (AMAT; FSLR)"
Here's CNBC's recap of Mad Money, dated June 6:First Solar [FSLR 243.40One problem: Insider selling is reported on Form 4 and any moron with a keyboard can check any public company. This is not new information. Either Cramer didn't check and only became aware of the issue when the media picked up on the story (I think it was Bloomberg that hammered the point home, although we had a mention a few days earlier) or it didn't matter to Crammer while the stock was going up.-8.29 (-3.29%)
]: The CEO’s “massive insider selling” did “temper my enthusiasm for the stock,” Cramer said. He can’t recommend FSLR until the chief executive explains himself.
The insider selling at FSLR has been going on for fifteen months without an insider purchase. For future reference FSLR's CIK is 000120919.
Here are the last 100 [!] sales, uninterrupted by a buy.
The next month is when we noticed FSLR's pattern of trading up into earnings, beating expectations and then fading:
First Solar to Beat and Raise, Market Yawns (FSLR)UPDATE below
At least that's what the stock was saying today. Up $4.44 on a down 2% day. They report after the close Wednesday.
Sometimes it seems that the action is singing to you.
Note the sweet moves of the youthful Mr. Ahearn, before he is directed by counsel to resume insider sales.
(@1:45).
Here's We Got the Beat
Remember that we have seen three reports* that were followed by downticks and believe it is the new trend in solar. "Evergreen Solar Q2 In Line, But Shrs Fall On Light Outlook (ESLR)"
*SPWR-beat
ESLR- in line
MEMC- swing and a miss.
All three down. As grandmother used to say "Secular bear markets aren't just about declines [although they can be doozies], they're also about multiple contraction."
"Grandma, what's a doozie?"
