Insiders who bought US$276.9k worth of Pensana Plc (LON:PRE) stock in the last year have seen some of their losses recouped as the stock gained 13% last week. However, the purchase is proving to be an expensive wager as insiders are yet to get ahead of their losses which currently stand at US$30k since the time of purchase.

While insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

View our latest analysis for Pensana

Pensana Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Executive Chairman Paul Atherley for UK￡120k worth of shares, at about UK￡0.26 per share. That means that an insider was happy to buy shares at above the current price of UK￡0.22. It's very possible they regret the purchase, but it's more likely they are bullish about the company. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when an insider has purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price. Paul Atherley was the only individual insider to buy during the last year.

Paul Atherley purchased 1.12m shares over the year. The average price per share was UK￡0.25. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Insider Ownership Of Pensana

I like to look at how many shares insiders own in a company, to help inform my view of how aligned they are with insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. From our data, it seems that Pensana insiders own 5.9% of the company, worth about UK￡3.7m. We do generally prefer see higher levels of insider ownership.

So What Do The Pensana Insider Transactions Indicate?

It doesn't really mean much that no insider has traded Pensana shares in the last quarter. However, our analysis of transactions over the last year is heartening. We'd like to see bigger individual holdings. However, we don't see anything to make us think Pensana insiders are doubting the company. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Pensana. To help with this, we've discovered 5 warning signs (2 are potentially serious!) that you ought to be aware of before buying any shares in Pensana.