Founded in Germany in 1972 by former IBM employees, SAP is the world’s largest provider of enterprise application software. Known as the leader in enterprise resource planning software, SAP’s portfolio also includes software for supply chain management, procurement, travel and expense management, and customer relationship management, among others. The company operates in more than 180 countries and has more than 400,000 customers, approximately 80% of which are small to medium-size enterprises.

One of the world's largest business software companies, SAP provides enterprise software addressing both the management of core business processes and analytics. The company offers specific solutions for industry segments including high tech, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, healthcare, retail, consumer products, and the public sector. Based in Walldorf, Germany, SAP has a broad base of customers worldwide, including 99 out of the 100 largest global companies with 80% of its customer base small and medium enterprises. Products are maintained through product support services and option upgrades. SAP generates 69% of its revenue outside the U.S.

Earnings season is in full swing, a time when insider-transaction volume always slows because of trading restrictions that are in place for corporate executives, directors, and beneficial owners. While that typically results in 'weak' volume-deprived insider-sentiment readings, we note that the major stock indices are also at or near all-time highs. And investors of all stripes, insiders included, are known to take money off the table when the stocks they own have never been so valuable. End of day, there are viable explanations for insider-sentiment data that is less than stellar, as is the case now. Looking at the weekly data from Vickers Stock Research, the NYSE One-Week Sell/Buy Ratio is now 8.38; the same ratio for the Nasdaq is 8.91; and the Total (all exchanges) ratio is 8.68. Those readings are on a scale where any result above 6.00 is bearish. But based on the above offsets, we are far from suggesting that the sky is likely to fall. Drilling down to sector sell/buy ratios, four sectors recorded bullish one-week sell/buy ratios over the past week, while two recorded bearish sentiment. Communication Services, Healthcare, Real Estate, and Utility were all bullish during the period, while Information Technology and Materials were bearish. While volume was light across most sectors, this was not the case for Information Technology, where 174 transactions resulted in a particularly high (bearish) sell/buy ratio of 173.0. Zooming out, six sectors recorded a bullish eight-week sell/buy ratio, including Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Financial, Healthcare, Industrial, and Real Estate, while Communication Services, Energy, and Information Technology were bearish. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at United Rentals Inc. (NYSE: URI) and PriceSmart Inc. (NGS: PSMT).

Founded in Germany in 1972 by former IBM employees, SAP is the world’s largest provider of enterprise application software. Known as the leader in enterprise resource planning software, SAP’s portfolio also includes software for supply chain management, procurement, travel and expense management, and customer relationship management, among others. The company operates in more than 180 countries and has more than 400,000 customers, approximately 80% of which are small to medium-size enterprises.