NEW YORK – September 13, 2026 (STL.News) — Corporate insiders are selling billions of dollars of stock; members of Congress have recently reported nearly twice as many stock sales as purchases, and investors just pulled more than $32 billion from U.S. equity funds in a single week.
With the S&P 500 still near record territory, rising Treasury yields, persistent inflation and geopolitical uncertainty are raising an increasingly important question: Are some of America’s best-informed and wealthiest investors beginning to protect their profits?
There are reasons to pay attention.
There is not, however, enough evidence to conclude that corporate executives, billionaire shareholders or politicians are collectively rushing for the exits.
The picture is considerably more complicated.
Corporate insiders are overwhelmingly selling rather than buying their companies’ shares. Some enormous individual transactions have occurred. Congressional disclosures are also tilted toward sales. At the same time, corporate stock buybacks remain at record levels, Berkshire Hathaway has returned to being a net buyer of equities, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison just canceled a plan that could have allowed him to sell billions of dollars of Oracle stock.
The result is not a flashing red warning light.
It may, however, be a yellow one worth watching.
Corporate insiders remain heavy sellers
Corporate officers, directors and major shareholders generally must report transactions in their companies’ securities to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 4.
September’s filings are heavily tilted toward selling.
Through Sept. 11, one compilation of open-market Form 4 transactions showed about $328.7 million in insider purchases compared with $1.72 billion in sales.
That works out to approximately $5.20 sold for every $1 purchased.
There were 373 purchase filings compared with 2,023 sale filings.
Those numbers sound alarming until you put them in context.
Insiders normally sell substantially more stock than they purchase. Executives frequently receive shares as compensation and sell them for diversification, taxes, estate planning, and ordinary liquidity. Other transactions are executed automatically under previously established Rule 10b5-1 trading plans.
Consequently, a $20 million insider sale does not necessarily mean an executive believes his or her company’s shares are overvalued.
Insider purchases can sometimes be more informative.
An executive can have dozens of reasons to sell stock. There are considerably fewer reasons for an executive to reach into his or her personal bank account and voluntarily purchase additional shares on the open market.
September’s relatively limited buying therefore deserves attention even if the overall sales-to-purchases ratio is not historically extraordinary.
Another current insider database reports that CEO and CFO sentiment is bearish even while its broader 90-day insider trend has been improving.
Technology insiders show an enormous imbalance
The selling becomes more striking when the data are separated by sector.
One September compilation shows technology insiders making about $16 million in purchases against $1.79 billion in sales.
That represents more than $100 of reported sales for every $1 of purchases under that particular methodology.
Healthcare shows approximately $29.7 million purchased against $443 million sold, while financial-services insiders show approximately $34.2 million purchased against $354 million sold.
Energy insiders show an even more extreme ratio, with approximately $3.2 million purchased against $126 million sold.
Again, those numbers should not be interpreted as predictions of falling stock prices. Planned transactions, stock-based compensation and very large founder holdings can distort dollar comparisons dramatically.
But the scarcity of buying is worth watching.
If executives broadly believed their companies’ shares were significantly undervalued, investors might reasonably expect more insiders to be purchasing stock with their own money.
Walmart’s Walton family has sold enormous amounts
Few transactions demonstrate the importance of context better than the selling involving Walmart’s founding family.
The Walton Family Holdings Trust sold 4,424,704 Walmart shares on June 16 for gross proceeds of approximately $535.8 million, according to an SEC Form 144 filing.
That followed a March 25 sale of about 2.98 million shares for $366.4 million, several May transactions, and a June 2 sale of about 1.77 million shares for $200.7 million.
Half a billion dollars sold in one day certainly attracts attention.
But scale matters.
The Walton interests own an enormous Walmart position, meaning hundreds of millions of dollars can represent a relatively modest percentage of their total Walmart wealth.
The SEC filing associated with the transactions also contains the standard representation that the seller does not know of material adverse information regarding Walmart’s current or prospective operations that has not been publicly disclosed.
Therefore, the Walton selling cannot reasonably be presented as evidence that the family expects something bad to happen at Walmart.
What is noteworthy is the persistence and magnitude of the monetization.
For investors trying to determine whether America’s wealthiest corporate shareholders are becoming more defensive, cumulative selling may ultimately prove more informative than any single transaction.
February provided a stronger warning
Evidence also suggests insiders became considerably more cautious earlier this year.
Reuters reported in March that the U.S. corporate insider seller-to-buyer ratio jumped to 4.2 in February, its highest level in 20 months, according to Washington Service data.
Approximately 2,260 insiders sold while only 543 bought.
Total insider sales reached approximately $6.6 billion.
Among S&P 500 companies, 833 executives sold more than $4.9 billion of shares, while only 74 executives purchased about $271 million.
That was a much stronger indication of corporate caution than simply pointing to one billionaire selling several hundred million dollars of stock.
Yet even that signal requires restraint.
Insiders can react to market uncertainty just like other investors, and personal portfolio decisions do not necessarily predict corporate earnings or future market direction.
Congress is selling more than buying
Corporate executives are not the only group whose transactions receive scrutiny.
Members of Congress must report many securities transactions under federal disclosure requirements, although those reports can arrive weeks after the actual trade.
A review of 400 congressional disclosures covering transactions from July 23 through Aug. 28 found 259 sales and 141 purchases—nearly two sales for every purchase.
The filings were almost evenly divided politically, with 204 Democratic disclosures and 196 Republican disclosures.
But Congress is clearly not abandoning the stock market.
Recent congressional purchases included Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Apple, Alphabet, Intel, Broadcom, Bloom Energy, and other companies.
Goldman Sachs appeared in 22 separate purchase disclosures, making it the most frequently purchased company in the dataset.
Congressional disclosures also have significant limitations as a market indicator.
Transactions are reported in broad dollar ranges rather than precise amounts, and lawmakers can have as long as 45 days to disclose transactions. Some disclosed transactions also involve spouses or family-controlled accounts rather than trades personally directed by the member of Congress.
The latest data therefore do not support the claim that politicians are quietly fleeing the stock market.
Larry Ellison just did the opposite
Perhaps the most interesting insider transaction this weekend was one that didn’t happen.
Oracle disclosed that co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison canceled a trading plan that would have allowed him to sell as many as 50 million Oracle shares.
At Oracle’s Sept. 11 closing price, those shares would have been worth approximately $7.5 billion.
The plan had been adopted June 22 and was scheduled to expire Oct. 24.
Ellison canceled it without selling shares under the plan, according to Oracle.
That does not guarantee Ellison believes Oracle stock will rise.
But it is difficult to reconcile the decision with a theory that America’s billionaire corporate insiders are universally attempting to cash out near a market top.
One of the world’s wealthiest corporate founders just voluntarily eliminated a mechanism that could have allowed him to convert billions of dollars of stock into cash.
Berkshire Hathaway is another important counterargument
Berkshire Hathaway’s behavior also complicates the bearish insider narrative.
During the first six months of 2026, Berkshire purchased approximately $39.4 billion of equity securities while selling approximately $27.8 billion.
That made Berkshire a net buyer by roughly $11.6 billion.
Berkshire nevertheless remained extraordinarily defensive on liquidity. As of June 30, its insurance and other businesses held approximately $359.2 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and U.S. Treasury bills.
Berkshire also spent approximately $4.8 billion repurchasing its own shares during the first half of the year, with most of those repurchases occurring during the second quarter.
That combination is revealing.
Berkshire is maintaining an enormous liquidity reserve while simultaneously finding tens of billions of dollars worth of equities it is willing to purchase.
That looks more like selectivity than a wholesale retreat from stocks.
Corporate America is still buying its own shares
Another powerful counterargument to the market-top thesis comes from corporate buybacks.
S&P 500 companies repurchased approximately $1.10 trillion of their own stock during the 12 months through June 2026, an all-time high, according to Neuberger Berman analysis based on Bloomberg data.
The composition is changing, however.
Companies spending heavily on artificial intelligence infrastructure have reduced their relative contribution to buybacks, while financial companies and businesses benefiting from AI capital spending have become increasingly important buyers.
Corporate America therefore does not appear to be universally preparing for an equity-market collapse.
Companies themselves continue returning extraordinary amounts of capital to shareholders.
Investors themselves are becoming more defensive
Another development deserves considerable attention.
During the week ended Sept. 9, investors withdrew approximately $32.27 billion from U.S. equity funds, according to LSEG Lipper data reported by Reuters.
That was the largest weekly outflow in approximately nine months.
Large-cap equity funds saw extraordinary net withdrawals of $40.44 billion, while U.S. bond funds attracted about $6.56 billion.
Bond funds have now experienced 21 consecutive weeks of net purchases.
That is a genuine defensive signal.
It does not come specifically from corporate insiders, but it shows investors moving substantial capital away from large-cap equity funds while continuing to put money into bonds.
The backdrop helps explain why.
Oil prices have surged amid the Iran conflict, inflation remains troublesome, and Treasury yields have climbed sharply.
Treasury yields are challenging stocks
The bond market may ultimately be more important than insider selling.
On Sept. 10, the 10-year Treasury yield reached its highest level in nearly three years, while the 30-year Treasury yield reached its highest level in more than 19 years.
Higher yields create competition for stocks because investors can earn increasingly attractive returns from government securities without assuming equity-market risk.
They also raise borrowing costs for corporations, consumers and governments.
The S&P 500 closed Sept. 10 at 7,591.75 after falling 0.58%, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.65% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.60%.
Investors are now preparing for another Federal Reserve interest-rate increase as persistent inflation, elevated oil prices, and strong economic data complicate monetary policy.
As of Sept. 11, the S&P 500 was still up nearly 12% during 2026 and remained relatively close to record levels.
That combination—high stock prices and rapidly rising bond yields-is precisely why insider activity deserves closer attention.
Stocks aren’t universally priced at extremes
It is also important not to exaggerate current valuations.
Although several longer-term valuation measures remain elevated, the S&P 500’s forward price-to-earnings ratio has recently fallen substantially.
One calculation placed the forward P/E at approximately 19.2, its lowest level since April 2025. Rising corporate earnings estimates have helped bring valuations down even while the index remains near historically high nominal levels.
That distinction matters.
An index reaching a record price does not automatically mean its valuation has reached a record.
If corporate earnings grow rapidly enough, stock prices can rise while valuation multiples fall.
What would turn the yellow light red?
No single insider sale should be considered proof that a stock—or the entire market—is about to decline.
Investors should watch for a change in behavior.
A much more concerning pattern would emerge if CEOs and CFOs who historically retained their shares suddenly began selling large percentages of their positions; several senior executives at the same company sold simultaneously; discretionary sales outside Rule 10b5-1 plans accelerated; insider purchases disappeared; corporate buybacks declined sharply; major institutional investors accumulated significantly more cash; and equity-fund outflows continued for several weeks.
Several of those ingredients are visible today.
They are not yet visible together strongly enough to constitute a market alarm.
America’s smart money appears selective, not panicked
The evidence as of Sept. 13 suggests America’s corporate insiders and wealthy investors are taking substantial profits and maintaining considerable liquidity, but they are not collectively abandoning equities.
Corporate insider sales significantly exceed purchases.
The Walton family’s Walmart sales demonstrate the extraordinary amounts of wealth being converted from stock into cash.
Congressional disclosures show considerably more sales than purchases.
Investors just withdrew more than $32 billion from U.S. equity funds in one week, while bond funds continue attracting money.
Those are legitimate caution signals.
But the counterevidence is equally important.
Berkshire Hathaway became a net equity buyer during the first half of 2026. S&P 500 companies are conducting record buybacks. Members of Congress continue purchasing major U.S. companies. Larry Ellison also just canceled a plan that could have allowed him to sell about $7.5 billion of Oracle stock.
The evidence therefore does not support declaring that insiders know a market crash is coming.
What it does support is increased vigilance.
At elevated stock-market levels, with Treasury yields rising, inflation remaining stubborn and geopolitical risks increasing, investors should pay attention not merely to how many shares insiders sell but to whether their behavior changes.
If America’s CEOs, CFOs, founders, billionaire shareholders, and major capital allocators suddenly begin moving toward cash at the same time, the signal would become considerably harder to dismiss.
For now, the warning light is yellow.
Disclosure: This article is for news and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, or trading advice. Insider transactions may occur for many reasons unrelated to an insider’s expectations for a company’s future stock performance. Investors should conduct their own research and consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions.
