First Finl Bankshares Insider Trades $70.84 Thousand In Company Stock

Johnny Trotter, Director at First Finl Bankshares FFIN, made a large insider buy on September 1, according to a new SEC filing.

What Happened: A Form 4 filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday showed that Trotter purchased 1,500 shares of First Finl Bankshares at a price of $47.26 per share. The total transaction amounted to $70,845.

Following the transaction, Trotter now owns 930,293 shares of the company, worth $43,793,542.

First Finl Bankshares shares are trading down 0.54% at $47.08 at the time of this writing on Thursday afternoon.

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.

Get more information on previous transactions.