Executives at U.S. Homebuilder Discard Shares Amid Resurgent Housing Market, Plus Other Noteworthy Insider Trading

Cluster of Insider Selling at Top Performing Banking Company

Three different insiders at Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) offloaded shares at the beginning of the week. To start with, board member John Peter Sande III discarded 5,945 shares on Monday at a price of $50.11 per share, cutting his ownership to 17,272 shares. Board member James E. Nave liquidated 50,000 shares on the same day at prices varying from $49.61 to $50.13 per share, held in a profit-sharing plan that currently owns 96,005 shares. Dr. Nave also holds a direct ownership stake of 251,876 shares. Last but not least, Randall S. Theisen, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, sold 3,120 shares on Tuesday at $49.80 apiece, a sale that trimmed his ownership to 40,001 shares.

The shares of the Arizona-based bank holding company are trading slightly below their 52-week high of $50.76, after having jumped by an impressive 58% in the past year. Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) was ranked fourth on Forbes’ 2017 list of “Best Banks in America.” Forbes ranked the 100 largest U.S. banks based on ten different metrics related to growth, profitability, capital adequacy, and asset quality. The banking company was ranked tenth on the 2016 list, which shows that Western Alliance had a productive 2016. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors had around 260,000 shares of Western Alliance Bancorporation (NYSE:WAL) in its portfolio at the end of the third quarter.

Executives at #3 U.S. Homebuilder Discard Shares Amid Resurgent Housing Market

Two members of PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE:PHM)’s executive team trimmed their equity stakes in the company at the beginning of the week. James R. Ellinghausen, Executive Vice President of Human Resources, sold 47,744 shares on Monday at $21 each, cutting his holding to 435,187 shares. Harmon D. Smith, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President, discarded 48,010 shares on the same day at prices that ranged between $21.40 and $21.43 per share. Mr. Smith owns 249,547 shares after the Monday sale.

The shares of the nation’s third-largest homebuilder jumped in late-January after the company released better-than-expected financial results for the fourth quarter, boosted by a jump in home sales and average selling price. PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE:PHM), which predominantly sell single-family homes, said that the average price of homes sold increased to $391,000 in the final quarter of 2016 from $353,000 in the same quarter of 2015. Meanwhile, the number of homes sold jumped to 6,197 from 5,662. For that reason, PulteGroup’s home sales revenue rose by 21.3% year-on-year to $2.42 billion. The shares of the U.S. homebuilder are up by 29% in the past year. John Horseman’s Horseman Capital Management added a 750,000-share stake in PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE:PHM) to its portfolio during the fourth quarter.

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