When a single insider purchases stock, it is typically not a major deal. However, when multiple insiders purchase stock, like in Business First Bancshares, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:BFST) instance, it's good news for shareholders.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

See our latest analysis for Business First Bancshares

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Business First Bancshares

The Executive VP & COO Keith Mansfield made the biggest insider purchase in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$146k worth of shares at a price of US$14.60 each. Although we like to see insider buying, we note that this large purchase was at significantly below the recent price of US$18.79. While it does suggest insiders consider the stock undervalued at lower prices, this transaction doesn't tell us much about what they think of current prices.

In the last twelve months insiders purchased 49.61k shares for US$720k. But they sold 3.00k shares for US$63k. Overall, Business First Bancshares insiders were net buyers during the last year. 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!

Business First Bancshares is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying.

Insiders At Business First Bancshares Have Sold Stock Recently

We have seen a bit of insider selling at Business First Bancshares, over the last three months. US$63k worth of shares were sold by Executive Vice President of Financial Institutions Group Jesse Jackson. But the good news is that there was purchasing too , worth US$31k. While it's not great to see insider selling, the net amount sold isn't enough for us to want to read anything into it.

Does Business First Bancshares Boast High 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. Business First Bancshares insiders own about US$32m worth of shares. That equates to 6.7% of the company. This level of insider ownership is good but just short of being particularly stand-out. It certainly does suggest a reasonable degree of alignment.