Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P) may have released news that its listening hours rose by 16% in August. It also said that its total U.S. market share of all radio was 7.46%, an increase from 6.30% a year ago. And Pandora even showed that its active listener growth metrics were massive: Active listeners were 72.1 million at the end of August 2013, up 28% from a year ago. What Pandora Media did not include in its press release was that there is a massive wave of selling taking place this week and recently from insiders and management.

SEC filings have shown a very strong wave of insider selling this week, and we are not sure that the SEC filings are finished yet. When you see that Pandora’s stock price is still above $18, and when you consider that it was under $10 as recently as the start of 2013, a sensible investor might wonder if it is time to take some profits if management is taking profits.

Here are some of the insider Form 4 filings:

• Robert Kavner, director: sold 9,000 shares for more than $166K
• John Trimble, chief revenue officer: sold 30,000 shares for about $559K
• Timothy Westergren, director: sold 85,000 shares for almost $1.6 million
• Thomas Conrad, VP: sold 55,000 shares for right at $1.02 million

Be advised that other Form 4 filings hit the tape in August while Pandora shares were strong as well. We saw another 20,000 shares sold by Trimble, another 55,000 from Conrad, another 9,000 from Kavner another 85,000 from Westergren, another 30,000 from Trimble, and yet another 55,000 or so from Conrad. We are not reviewing the insider sales on Form 4 that posted in July, but just the August filings that we tallied up to roughly another 250,000 shares sold.

We would note that the bulk of these are stock options exercised recently or previously, and most appear to be part of planned share sale plans by management. That being said, insiders are locking in some serious profits.

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