The Magnificent Seven and the Weight of Shares

It has, for some cycles of the market moon, been thus: the bulls have held sway. Not through any particular brilliance of strategy, mind you, but through a confluence of factors – the shimmering promise of artificial intelligence (which, let’s be honest, mostly involves making machines better at predicting what you’ll buy next, not achieving sentience), and the peculiar gravitational pull of what the scribes now call ‘The Magnificent Seven’. These are not, as one might hope, a band of travelling entertainers, but rather the companies whose shares have, for a time, propped up the entire edifice of Wall Street. A precarious arrangement, as any competent architect will tell you. One wonders if they’ve considered bracing.

The Seven, in descending order of market capitalization (a measurement of how much everyone thinks something is worth, which is often divorced from actual value, but never mind), are:

Nvidia (NVDA +1.44%)
Apple (AAPL +0.75%)
Alphabet (GOOGL +0.64%)(GOOG +0.67%)
Microsoft (MSFT +3.00%)
Amazon (AMZN +1.00%)
Meta Platforms (META +2.25%)
Tesla (TSLA +1.92%)

These are, undeniably, companies of considerable influence. They’ve mastered the art of convincing people they need things they previously managed perfectly well without. A skill older than alchemy, and arguably more profitable. They also, it must be said, possess a certain… momentum. Like a particularly large boulder rolling downhill. Best not to stand in front of it, even if you suspect it’s mostly hot air.¹

But even boulders occasionally shift on their axis. And the Seven, those pillars of the recent bull run, are now whispering a warning. Not in booming pronouncements, of course. Oh no. They’re communicating through the subtle language of insider trading. Or, to put it more bluntly, through the quiet selling of their own shares.

The Insiders’ Tale: A Story of Shares and Shadows

An ‘insider’, for those unfamiliar with the arcane rules of the market, is a high-ranking individual – an executive, a board member, or someone owning a substantial portion of the company. They possess information not yet available to the general public.² This is not necessarily malicious; sometimes they simply know their latest widget is a disaster waiting to happen. But securities laws, in their infinite wisdom, require them to declare their transactions. Form 4 filings, they’re called. A paper trail for the discerning observer. And, as it turns out, the trail is rather… interesting.

Over the past year, the insiders at these magnificent companies have been shedding shares like snakeskin. The numbers, as compiled by diligent scribes, are as follows:

Nvidia: $2,249,988,017 in net selling
Apple: $129,956,722 in net selling
Alphabet: $251,759,211 in net selling
Microsoft: $163,943,850 in net selling
Amazon: $5,724,146,695 in net selling
Meta Platforms: $436,549,333 in net selling
Tesla: $542,118,217 in net buying

A grand total of $8,414,225,611 has been quietly offloaded. A sum large enough to fund a small kingdom, or at least a very lavish shareholder party. Tesla, under the somewhat erratic stewardship of its CEO, bucked the trend, with Elon Musk actually buying shares. One suspects this was less about faith in the company and more about a desire to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.

Now, before one cries foul, it’s important to remember that executives often receive stock and options as compensation. Selling shares can be a matter of covering tax liabilities. A perfectly reasonable explanation. But it’s also true that there’s a reason why they don’t shout about it from the rooftops. And the fact that insider buying is almost nonexistent – a mere trickle compared to the flood of selling – is… noteworthy.³

The market, as any seasoned observer knows, is a fickle beast. It rewards optimism and punishes doubt. And when the very people running the most influential companies are quietly reducing their exposure, it’s a signal that even the most ardent bulls should heed. It doesn’t necessarily mean a crash is imminent. But it suggests that the foundations of this rally may be… less solid than they appear. A prudent investor, therefore, might consider bracing for a shift in the wind. Or, at the very least, keeping a close eye on the horizon.

¹ The analogy to a boulder is, of course, imperfect. Boulders, while impressive, rarely generate quarterly earnings reports.

² This information is not necessarily useful. Sometimes it’s just that the cafeteria is running out of sandwiches. But it is, technically, non-public.

³ One might even say it’s a bit like a flock of birds suddenly changing direction. Usually means a cat is nearby.

2026-02-26 13:12

The Insiders’ Tale: A Story of Shares and Shadows

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