We wouldn't blame U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SLCA) shareholders if they were a little worried about the fact that Charles Shaver, the Independent Chairman of the Board recently netted about US$717k selling shares at an average price of US$14.33. That's a big disposal, and it decreased their holding size by 25%, which is notable but not too bad.

View our latest analysis for U.S. Silica Holdings

Notably, that recent sale by Charles Shaver is the biggest insider sale of U.S. Silica Holdings shares that we've seen in the last year. So we know that an insider sold shares at around the present share price of US$14.31. We generally don't like to see insider selling, but the lower the sale price, the more it concerns us. We note that this sale took place at around the current price, so it isn't a major concern, though it's hardly a good sign.

You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date!

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. A high insider ownership often makes company leadership more mindful of shareholder interests. It appears that U.S. Silica Holdings insiders own 2.8% of the company, worth about US$30m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

An insider hasn't bought U.S. Silica Holdings stock in the last three months, but there was some selling. And even if we look at the last year, we didn't see any purchases. Insiders own shares, but we're still pretty cautious, given the history of sales. We'd practice some caution before buying! In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing U.S. Silica Holdings. For example - U.S. Silica Holdings has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.

Of course U.S. Silica Holdings may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of high quality companies.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

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U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc. produces and sells commercial silica in the United States.

Undervalued with reasonable growth potential.

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