We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. On the other hand, we'd be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So before you buy or sell Nautilus, Inc. (NYSE:NLS), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling.

Do Insider Transactions Matter?

It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market.

Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Harvard University study found that 'insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year.'

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The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Nautilus

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider sale was by the Independent Director, Richard Horn, for US$74k worth of shares, at about US$14.80 per share. We generally don't like to see insider selling, but the lower the sale price, the more it concerns us. The good news is that this large sale was at well above current price of US$3.10. So it may not tell us anything about how insiders feel about the current share price.

Over the last year we saw more insider selling of Nautilus shares, than buying. You can see the insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

If you like to buy stocks that insiders are buying, rather than selling, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them).

Insiders at Nautilus Have Bought Stock Recently

There was some insider buying at Nautilus over the last quarter. Senior VP of Law & Human Resources Wayne Bolio bought US$15k worth of shares in that time. It's good to see the insider buying, as well as the lack of recent sellers. However, in this case the amount invested recently is quite small.

Insider Ownership of Nautilus

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Based on our data, Nautilus insiders have about 3.1% of the stock, worth approximately US$2.9m. We prefer to see high levels of insider ownership.

What Might The Insider Transactions At Nautilus Tell Us?

We note a that there has been a bit of insider buying recently (but no selling). That said, the purchases were not large. Our analysis of Nautilus insider transactions leaves us unenthusiastic. And we're not picking up on high enough insider ownership to give us any comfort. Therefore, you should should definitely take a look at this FREE report showing analyst forecasts for Nautilus.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.