Welcome to edition 230 of Insider Weekends. Insider buying decreased last week with insiders buying $73.83 million of stock compared to $90.85 million in the week prior. Selling also decreased with insiders selling $1.67 billion of stock last week compared to $2.18 billion in the week prior.

While the total amount of insider buying was lower, there were several interesting purchases this week that did not make it into the top 5 purchases. Some of these purchases include a cluster purchase by three insiders of TrueCar (TRUE), a large 25,000 share purchase by the CEO of internet radio service Pandora (P),  additional purchases by two directors of Tile Shop Holdings (TTS), a cluster purchase by three insiders of educational toy company LeapFrog (LF) that included purchases by both the CEO and the CFO, a cluster purchase by eight insiders of healthcare technology company Allscripts (MDRX), a cluster purchase by three insiders of regional bank holding company First Niagara (FNFG) and a purchase by two insiders of newspaper company Tribune Publishing (TPUB) that included a purchase by the CFO.

The Pandora purchase triggered a 16.59% rally in the stock on Friday. I have owned LeapFrog since earlier this year and First Niagara for several years.

Sell/Buy Ratio: The insider Sell/Buy ratio is calculated by dividing the total insider sales in a given week by total insider purchases that week. The adjusted ratio for last week dropped down slightly to 22.67. In other words, insiders sold  almost 23 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares favorably with the prior week, when the ratio stood at 23.95. We are calculating an adjusted ratio by removing transactions by funds and companies and trying as best as possible only to retain information about insiders and 10% owners who are not funds or companies.

Insider Sell Buy Ratio November 14, 2014

Note: As mentioned in the first post in this series, certain industries have their preferred metrics such as same store sales for retailers, funds from operations (FFO) for REITs and revenue per available room (RevPAR) for hotels that provide a better basis for comparison than simple valuation metrics. However metrics like Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Enterprise Value/EBITDA included below should provide a good starting point for analyzing the majority of stocks.

Notable Insider Buys:

1. Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK): $23.21

Director Archie W. Dunham acquired 500,000 shares of this oil and natural gas producer, paying $23.32 per share for a total amount of $11.66 million. Mr. Dunham increased his stake by 44.17% to 1,632,107 shares with this purchase.