Insider Cashes Out Millions More in Cognizant Stock Options

Investors love to watch insider trading, even the legal insider buy-sell actions from corporate insiders.  When a director sells shares after exercising an option, it is not always a prelude to bad news nor does it mean that the company is in trouble.  Still, when you see a director take out more than $6 million in stock it can raise some eyebrows.

It was about two weeks ago that we saw RAMAKRISHNAN CHANDRASEKARAN exercise options for 30,000 shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ: CTSH) at $11.44 per share, and then there was an automatic share sale at $64.00 to yield some $1.92 million.  Now today we are seeing a much larger transaction: LAKSHMI NARAYANAN exercised options on August 16 for 100,000 shares at $5.06 per share with a sale price listed as $65.00 per share.  This generated proceeds of $6.5 million.

This does not appear to be any panic selling as far as we can tell based on insider selling history here at Cognizant Technology Solutions.  We would note that this director also exercised many other options for millions of more dollars in 2012 and 2011.  We also Again, insiders sell shares and exercise options for a myriad of reasons which are often no different than if those shares were granted to you.

Cognizant Technology shares are currently down 0.9% at $63.90 against a 52-week range of $53.92 to $78.00.

JON C. OGG