The dog days of August have typically meant slow volumes and vacations for the legions of traders and financial professionals that work on Wall Street. It also usually means that volumes in insider trading slow down as well. While that was not the case with the buyers this past week, it definitely was with the sellers. Yet it did not keep technology and financial services insiders from unloading shares.

We cover insider selling each week at 24/7 Wall St., and we like to remind our readers that if you see a stock you own on our lists, it is no cause for immediate concern. Many high level employees are paid and bonused with stock and stock options. Selling is a way to diversify and often invest in other assets. When we see suspicious selling, we point it out.

Here are the companies that reported notable insider selling this week.

Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: AQXP) saw some major selling as two gigantic pharmaceutical companies that are 10% owners of the stock sold shares this past week as the stock spiked up huge. Pfizer sold 259,927 shares at prices that ranged from $21.45 to $41.24, for a total sale of $6.88 million. Not to be outdone, Johnson & Johnson sold 1.51 million shares at prices that ranged from $20.74 to $31.66, for a total sale of whopping $34 million. Aquinox posted positive mid-stage trial results for AQX-1125, its only clinical-stage drug candidate, for bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis. The stock shot up from under $3 on the August 7 to $55.75 on the 10th, so it is easy to see why the companies cashed out. We covered this amazing story in depth on Friday. The shares were trading on Friday’s close at $22.13.

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WisdomTree Investments Inc. (NASDAQ: WETF) had a director at the company sell a ton of shares this past week. That director shed 628,571 shares of the stock at prices between $25.21 and $25.33. The total for the sale came to $15.9 million. The company, which is run by Jonathan Steinberg, the husband of well-known financial celebrity and anchor Maria Bartiromo, operates as an exchange traded funds (ETFs) sponsor and asset manager. The shares closed trading on Friday at $24.58, so a well-timed sale.
GoPro Inc. (NASDAQ; GPRO) continues to see insider selling, and last week was no different. A director at the company sold a block of 100,000 shares at $65.23 apiece. The total for the sale came to $6.5 million. The company was featured this week as a top technology stock to buy for the rest of 2015. The shares ended trading on Friday at $58.85, so a well-timed sale indeed.

F5 Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) also had a director at the company part with shares last week. That director disposed of 34,223 shares of the networking giant at $131.65 apiece. The total for the sale came to $4.5 million. The company helps organizations seamlessly scale cloud, data center, telecommunications and software defined networking (SDN) deployments to successfully deliver applications and services. The stock ended the week at $132.61.

NVIDIA Inc. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is a technology chip stock that saw selling this past week, yet again from a director. This time a total of 34,223 hit the sell tape at a price of $23.30 per share. The total for the sale came to $2.5 million. The company operates through two segments, GPU and Tegra Processors. The GPU segment offers processors, which include GeForce for PC gaming, and Quadro for design professionals working in computer-aided design, video editing, special effects and other creative applications. The shares changing hands on Friday’s close at $23.54.

These companies also reported insider selling this week: Avalon Bay Communities Inc. (NYSE: AVB), Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (NYSE: DPS), Dyax Corp. (NASDAQ: DYAX), Ecolab Inc. (NYSE: ECL) and Fidelity National Financial Inc. (NYSE: FNF).

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While insiders were selling stock this past week, the volume was dwarfed by the insider buying. As the summer winds down, and the volume in the market starts to pick back up in September, it will be interesting to see if the selling volume doesn’t pick up as well.

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