Even if it's not a huge purchase, we think it was good to see that Jonathan Awde, the Co-Founder of Gold Standard Ventures Corp (TSE:GSV) recently shelled out CA$66k to buy stock, at CA$1.09 per share. Although the purchase is not a big one, increasing their shareholding by only 1.7%, it can be interpreted as a good sign.

Check out our latest analysis for Gold Standard Ventures

Gold Standard Ventures Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Notably, that recent purchase by Co-Founder Jonathan Awde was not the only time they bought Gold Standard Ventures shares this year. Earlier in the year, they paid CA$1.22 per share in a CA$100k purchase. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being CA$1.07). Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when insiders have purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid CA$503k for 523.98k shares. But they sold 50.21k shares for CA$51k. In total, Gold Standard Ventures insiders bought more than they sold over the last year. The average buy price was around CA$0.96. It's great to see insiders putting their own cash into the company's stock, albeit at below the recent share price. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. 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.

Does Gold Standard Ventures Boast High Insider Ownership?

For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. From looking at our data, insiders own CA$6.1m worth of Gold Standard Ventures stock, about 2.0% of the company. I generally like to see higher levels of ownership.

So What Do The Gold Standard Ventures Insider Transactions Indicate?

The recent insider purchase is heartening. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. However, we note that the company didn't make a profit over the last twelve months, which makes us cautious. While the overall levels of insider ownership are below what we'd like to see, the history of transactions imply that Gold Standard Ventures insiders are reasonably well aligned, and optimistic for the future. 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 Gold Standard Ventures has 2 warning signs and it would be unwise to ignore these.