When a single insider purchases stock, it is typically not a major deal. However, when multiple insiders purchase stock, like in Peapack-Gladstone Financial Corporation's (NASDAQ:PGC) instance, it's good news for shareholders.

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 Peapack-Gladstone Financial

Peapack-Gladstone Financial Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

The Senior EVP & President of Peapack Private Wealth Management, John Babcock, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$153k worth of shares at a price of US$30.59 each. While insider selling is a negative, to us, it is more negative if the shares are sold at a lower price. The silver lining is that this sell-down took place above the latest price (US$27.59). So it may not tell us anything about how insiders feel about the current share price.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid US$500k for 16.33k shares. On the other hand they divested 13.56k shares, for US$461k. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by Peapack-Gladstone Financial insiders. 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!

There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Insiders At Peapack-Gladstone Financial Have Bought Stock Recently

At Peapack-Gladstone Financial,over the last quarter, we have observed quite a lot more insider buying than insider selling. Insiders spent US$307k on shares. But Senior EVP & President of Peapack Private Wealth Management John Babcock sold shares worth US$153k. The buying outweighs the selling, which suggests that insiders may believe the company will do well in the future.

Insider Ownership

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. Insiders own 11% of Peapack-Gladstone Financial shares, worth about US$53m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders.