Sirius XM Radio: When the captain abandons ship
Today's Financial News - Posted October 7, 2009
Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) insiders are selling like crazy. When the captain abandons ship, you should follow. If not, you could be stuck in a deadly whirlpool.
By Andrew Snyder, TodaysFinancialNews.com
Baltimore – (TFN): They must be giving away the stock at county fairs, beauty pageants and used car dealerships these days. Everywhere I look, somebody is claiming ownership to at least a handful of Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) shares.
Getting your hands on the overpriced share is more like buying membership into a cult than any sound investment.
That is why the smart money is selling.
As an insider trading “specialist,” I will be the first to admit a bit of insider selling here and there is nothing to worry about. Investors have all sorts of reasons to unload their shares, from diversification to cash flow demands.
But when no corporate insider has bought shares in over a year and the dumping is measured in millions of dollars, it is a situation worth noting.
Before I go any further, let me make this clear: I have no financial stake in Sirius. Never have. Never will.
The only reason I write about its future demise is to warn investors about the Siren call of this hype-filled, ultra-speculative play.
Stock “bonus” plan
Since Sirius has never had the fortune of using a black pen to scribble out its bottom line, the company is forced to compensate its executives’ “good” work through by issuing them piles of stock.
Even as the guys that run the company and therefore the folks that should be the most optimistic and proud of its future, this gang looks at this “bonus” like a fifth grader looks at T-bill from his Grammie.
They sell it to the first sucker they can find.
They sold their shares for twelve cents in December. They sold them for forty cents in July. And they sold them for fifty eight cents last week.
If these guys thought Sirius was about to soar to ten bucks a share (without that ominous reverse split that is looking more likely than ever), there’s little question they would still be holding their shares. Why would somebody sell something today if they can get more for it next week?
Obviously, insiders are not optimistic about what will come next week, next month or next year. Why should they be?
Subscription growth is far slower than needed for the kind of growth the market demands, especially with massive debt looming over the horizon. Costs remain high. And the competition that so many shareholders ignorantly say is non-existent is worse than ever.
Since topping out above seventy cents in August, Sirius has been a market laggard. Dropping in value by more than 30%.
Today alone, shares were down by 10% in early trading.
Think it is time to jump from this sinking ship? Don’t follow my advice. Follow the guys that are running the company.
When the captain abandons ship, you better follow.
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9 Responses to “Sirius XM Radio: When the captain abandons ship”
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October 7th, 2009 at 6:58 am
These are all SCHEDULED sells of stock, they have to sell them on a particular date that is set well in advance, otherwise they could all get in trouble for “Insider Trading”. Let me guess, you also are an avid watcher of that hack Cramer and love reading “thestreet.com”. Quit bashing Sirius and do a little research before you post such crap.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I can’t agree more.
There are many items, besides the insider sell-off, that should be noted.
* I have seen – 1 – bumper sticker on a car, the main market that they focus on.
* Media outlets have been releasing stories that BEG FOR a lawsuit – I think it was sears that was also picked to be bankrupt – and they were not even number 1, like SiriusXM. NOT ONE WORD FROM MEL.
* Sirius/XM doesn’t care about the shareholders.
* Customer Service is outrageous. I have had to call them 4 times to get XMRO on my online account. They kept taking the channels away from me, but continued to collect payments. Not to mention the question they kept asking me, “Where do you use your iPhone – home, or in the car?” Um, ah, what?
* They released an iPhone app, that really doesn’t have the best features (which were to be on a 3rd party vendors app that they shut down.
* They released the XMP3 player – that has VERY LOW volume output. Not to mention, it worked VERY poorly, before the new satellite.
* It just goes on, and on… Mel doesn’t want to defend the company against media attacks, Mel doesn’t want to help the share holders, Mel doesn’t want to print up a bumper sticker, a t-shirt, etc…
* The website for their products is so confusing, I still can’t figure out what’s the difference between XM and Sirius. Is there any?
I hope Malone buys the rest of the debt, takes over the company, and fires the entire management team. What a bunch of clowns.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Here we go again, more bashing SIRI stock again… Did you ever think that if the executives at SIRIUS would sell their stock when it was at 12 cent they lost out on a huge amount of profit this year… Than as you say they sold again at 40 cents and lost out on a lot more profit when the the stock went up to 78 cents this summer… These executives at SIRIUS are just like a lot of employee out there today that just wanna make a quick buck… It’s the old saying ” A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush… These guy’s at SIRIUS just want to put money in their pockets right now and have no interest in making money down the road when SIRI hits $1 in the coming weeks when SIRI has a positive earnings report which is what is expected to happen next month in Nov 2009…. I lost thousands of dollars when I paniced earlier this year in Febuary because of Media B.S. like this… Look at the facts 1st before you sell because the facts are that SIRI is improving in almost every catigory… It’s expected to increase subsciber #’s due to
a combination of factors like…
The iPhone app which allows you to listen to SIRIUS over your iPhone…
Improved car sales in 2009…
New markets like Certified Pre Owned cars now having SIRIUS installed…
Every car Company has SIRiUS radio installed in one or more of their cars
Every Kia car comes with a SIRIUS XM radio as standard equipment…
The SIRIUS XM Skydock…
New portable SIRIUS XM mobile devices…
A new Satilite in orbit now that gives better reception and more coverage…
High quality programing ( Oprah, Howard Stern, and sports like NFL,NHL, NBA,
Nascar, Indy cars, Baseball, PGA golf with Tiger Woods, as well as 130 channels of every kind of music known to man…
Plus SIRIUS is advertising more so the numbers and profits are gonna continue to go up not down from here…
Don’t sell your SIRI stock unless you want to be like these employees at SIRIUS who are selling out of greed to buy their new Mercedes today and have already proven to the world that they Know nothing about the stock market because if they did they have been wrong all year and lost a ton of money selling their stock for peanuts just to put money in their pocket now… That makes no sense to keep selling a stock that continues to go up… If all the media would stop printing all these dooms day articles SIRIUS would be doing a lot better… The bottom line is this, Look at the numbers before you sell your stock because you will regret it just like i did when I sold my SIRI stock at a 50% loss in Feb… That was the biggest mistake I ever made… And I only made that decision based on the negetive media reports of Doom and Gloom for SIRIUS… Now I do my homework and you should to before you take advice to sell on doom and gloom reports like this one…
October 7th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I find it amazing that as soon as the WSJ writes an “article” the same cast of bashers regurgitate it the very same day without fail. Regarding the stock incentive pay plan . . . this was known about months ago and the timing of the sales were announced when the stock was issued. Whay exactly is this “news” now? You also fail to mention that these sales are a miniscule relative to the amount of shares that these executives still hold, or that they also hold stock options that will be worth a fortune if the stock price goes up. How does it make sense to buy shares in the open market when you already have these options?
October 7th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Sirius Realist said ” How does it make sense to buy shares in the open market when you already have these options?”
Well, if you are a company insider, subject to SEC reporting requirements, and you don’t want articles such as this one published, buying more of your firms’ stock makes all the sense in the world. It shows that you have confidence in your company, it shows that you believe that your company is a good investment, and it doesn’t provide fodder to journalists for articles predicting the demise of your firm.
Insiders buy ==> investors follow
Insiders sell ==> investors follow
Insiders sell in volume and never buy ==> what investors?
October 7th, 2009 at 11:17 am
If you are the insider trading “specialist” you claim to be, you would understand that without some understanding of the motivations behind the insider sales, the filings are meaningless. Perhaps these are scheduled sales or sales to cover taxes or for diversification of their own personal investments. You could “ass u me” the reason for the sales is negative outlook, but that would be a closed minded evaluation of the activity considering the run this stock has had this year.
October 7th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Institutions like Blackrock, Vanguard and Apollo are buying, not selling. Insiders are selling incentive shares, not liquidating positions. Smart money is buying here. Dumb money is telling you to sell.
And excuse Sirius if it has a little pullback. We only went up 1500% from the lows for the year. But, I did not see the article where you guys talked about that.
When are we going to get real, factual, accurate reporting, and not this biased, one-sided, basher garbage? Sirius will be over $1 by Christmas this year. Mark your calander.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
So basically you are accusing Sirius executives of insider trading? Do you not worry about the legal consequences of your biased reporting?
October 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
When I first became aware of this Sirius opportunity, I was amazed that I was in position to take advantage of it. Still, I hesitated because it seemed too good to be true and we know what they say about that. The stock was at $.05 (OMG!), but before I could fund an account and learn how to make a trade, it went to $.15, $.24, $.30, $.36….. I finally got in at $.40! I was relieved AND p—ed off, as you may well understand. Every one of my dollars could be eleven dollars right now!!! Oh, well, I see $4.00+ a share for Sirius in two years when the johnny-come-lately’s come piling in.
When I saw the insider selling, I paid close attention. It seems to me that they are selling for the cash flow almost everyone needs in these tough times, because they are not liquidating their entire holdings. The filings show selling is a low percentage of their holdings.
I think someone close to this guy is shorting Sirius.