Insider Selling At Chemed Corporation (CHE), PDC Energy Inc. (PDCE) And Others; How Much Should Investors Worry?

Axis Capital Holdings Limited (NYSE:AXS) is another company that witnessed an insider offload a sizable block of shares last week. General Counsel and Secretary Richard T. Gieryn Jr. sold 17,700 shares on Thursday at a weighted average price of $56.60, cutting his overall holding to 56,084 shares. The shares of the provider of specialty lines insurance and treaty reinsurance products are 10% in the green year-to-date and are trading at an appealing trailing P/E ratio of only 8.98. The company’s total underwriting income for the nine-month period that ended September 30 reached $214 million, down by $135 million as compared to the same period of 2014. The underwriting income figure mainly decreased as a result of an increase in the current accident year loss ratio (increased to 65.8% from 63.7% year-on-year), lower net earned premium and higher acquisition costs ratio, among other things. At the same time, the company realized losses of $124 million for the first nine months of 2015, compared with realized gains of $121 million reported for the same period last year. Meanwhile, Axis Capital has been undertaking certain initiatives aimed at boosting growth and enhancing shareholder value, including the discontinuation of its retail insurance operations in Australia. Richard S. Pzena’s Pzena Investment Management cut its position in Axis Capital Holdings Limited (NYSE:AXS) by 11% during the July-to-September period to 5.87 million shares.

Lastly, PDC Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:PDCE) also registered an unusual volume of insider selling last week. Gysle R. Shellum, who has been serving as the Chief Financial Officer since 2008, reported selling 13,181 shares on Thursday at prices between $56.50 and $56.75 per share, and currently owns 31,100 shares. The domestic independent exploration and production company, which primarily operates in the Wattenberg Field in Colorado and the Utica Shale in southeastern Ohio, has seen its shares gain 38% this year despite facing a challenging business environment. Even though the company’s top-line is strongly affected by lower market prices for crude oil, natural gas and NGLs, its hedging strategies have more than offset the negative impact of declines in commodity prices. Just recently, PDC Energy announced that it had already hedged roughly 50% of the company’s 2016 oil production at almost $85 per barrel and 62% of its natural gas production at $3.65 per thousand cubic feet. Moreover, the company anticipates that its 2016 capital budget will be in line with the cash flow generated from oil and natural gas sales. Thus, it appears that the company is quite well-positioned to endure a low commodity price environment. John Labanowski’s Brenham Capital Management owns 1.05 million shares in PDC Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:PDCE) as of September 30.

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