Senior EVP And COO Of Essex Property Trust Trades $10M In Company Stock

Angela Kleiman, Senior EVP And COO at Essex Property Trust ESS, made a large buy and sell of company shares on October 27, according to a new SEC filing.

What Happened: A Form 4 filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that Angela Kleiman exercised options to purchase 17,249 Essex Property Trust shares at a price of $240.61 per share for a total of $4,150,282 on October 27. They then sold their shares on the same day in the open market. They sold at prices ranging from $341.44 to $344.21 to raise a total of $5,895,776 from the stock sale.

Following the transaction, Kleiman still owns 7,117 shares of Essex Property Trust worth $2,451,114.

Essex Property Trust shares are trading down 0.38% at $344.4 at the time of this writing on Friday morning.

Why Insider Transactions Are Important

Insider transactions shouldn't be used primarily to make an investing decision, however, they can be an important factor for an investor to consider.

In legal terms, an "insider" refers to any shareholder who owns at least 10% of a company. This can include executives in the c-suite and large hedge funds. These insiders are required to let the public know of their transactions via a Form 4 filing, which must be filed within two business days of the transaction.

When a company insider makes a new purchase, that is an indication that they expect the stock to rise.

Insider sells, on the other hand, can be made for a variety of reasons, and may not necessarily mean that the seller thinks the stock will go down.

Important Transaction Codes

Investors prefer focusing on transactions that take place in the open market, indicated in Table I of the Form 4 filing. A P in Box 3 indicates a purchase, while S indicates a sale. Transaction code C indicates the conversion of an option, and transaction code A indicates the insider may have been forced to sell shares in order to receive compensation that had been promised upon being hired by the company.

Check Out The Full List Of Essex Property Trust's Insider Trades.