Viewing insider transactions for CVS Health Corporation's (NYSE:CVS ) over the last year, we see that insiders were net sellers. This means that a larger number of shares were sold by insiders in relation to shares purchased.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we do think it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing.

View our latest analysis for CVS Health

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At CVS Health

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider sale was by the Executive VP, Prem Shah, for US$2.3m worth of shares, at about US$76.95 per share. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. The good news is that this large sale was at well above current price of US$56.25. So it may not shed much light on insider confidence at current levels. Prem Shah was the only individual insider to sell over the last year.

Over the last year, we can see that insiders have bought 12.18k shares worth US$695k. But they sold 29.47k shares for US$2.3m. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of small cap stocks that are not only being bought by insiders but also have attractive valuations.

Insider Ownership

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Insiders own 0.1% of CVS Health shares, worth about US$82m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.

So What Does This Data Suggest About CVS Health Insiders?

There haven't been any insider transactions in the last three months -- that doesn't mean much. We don't take much encouragement from the transactions by CVS Health insiders. But we do like the fact that insiders own a fair chunk of the company. So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. While conducting our analysis, we found that CVS Health has 1 warning sign and it would be unwise to ignore it.