The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

Pilgrim’s Pride is the second-largest poultry producer in the US (58% of 2023 sales), the UK (30% including other European sales), and Mexico (12%). Its UK and European arm also includes pork operations from the 2019 acquisition of Tulip. Pilgrim's sells to chain restaurants, food processors, food distributors, and retail chains. Most of its US and Mexican sales come from fresh chicken, while prepared chicken and pork constitute most of its UK and European sales. JBS owns more than 80% of Pilgrim’s Pride's outstanding shares, though it failed to acquire the remaining stake in 2021 after a special board committee deemed JBS’ offer undervalued Pilgrim’s Pride.

Pilgrim's Pride Corporation was founded in 1946 and produces, processes, and distributes fresh, frozen, and value-added chicken products to retailers, distributors, and food-service companies. It exports chicken products to about 120 countries, and operates a vertically integrated business model. This means that PPC controls almost all of its business operations, from raising livestock to distribution of final products. The company is broken down into three segments: 1) U.S., 2) U.K. and Europe, and 3) Mexico, with the U.S. segment being the largest in net sales. The company deals with poultry products in all segments, while it only deals with pork products in the U.K. Its two largest customers contributed just over an eighth of revenue. Across 14 U.S. states, the U.K., Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Europe, Pilgrim's operates 39 production facilities and 27 prepared foods facilities. Pilgrim's owns Moy Park, which is a poultry and prepared foods company in the U.K. and Europe, and Tulip Limited, a pork and prepared foods company in the U.K. Headquartered in Greeley, Colorado, the company has over 61,200 employees. Pilgrim's has a market cap of more than $9.3 billion.

We've highlighted cautious insider-sentiment for several months now, but also noted that selling by insiders into a consistently rising market is not unusual. So while 'caution' has been our word of choice, we haven't called for a major equity correction. More recently, volatility has spiked in the form of rotation from semiconductors to almost anything else, a belief that the Fed will indeed cut rates in September, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, a massive IT breakdown that crippled many global entities, and the suspension of Joe Biden's presidential campaign. There are indeed many reasons to feel some uncertainty -- and in keeping with that, the weekly insider-sentiment data from Vickers Stock Research has pushed deeply into bearish territory. But one week is not a trend, and the current data is built on low transaction volume because of trading restrictions during earnings season. So while we're still not ready to ring any alarms -- and might even call any reset in stocks prices healthy for the long term -- we'll continue to monitor the trading activity of corporate insiders to see if this one-week spike shows signs of growing. On a sector basis, selling by insiders last week was greatest in Information Technology, with shares valued at $335 million sold versus less than $9 million bought, followed by Financials ($73 million sold). Meanwhile, buying outpaced selling in Energy and Real Estate. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN