What happened
DocuSign (DOCU 0.69%) stock has been a fabulous performer for its shareholders, more than quadrupling in value over the past year. And it's up again today -- increasing 5.5% earlier in the day and still up 3.2% as of 3 p.m. EDT.
Curiously, though, the only news out on the wires concerning DocuSign doesn't seem to be of the good variety.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
In a Form S-3 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, DocuSign advises that owners of Liveoak Technologies, the online notarization subsidiary that DocuSign acquired last month, have filed to sell 247,030 of the DocuSign shares that they received in payment for their shares of Liveoak during the acquisition.
Only Liveoak shareholders are selling DocuSign shares. DocuSign itself is not issuing and selling any new shares, and so will receive no portion of the sales price. Thus, this seems a clear-cut case of insiders selling out.
Now what
But doesn't that bode poorly for DocuSign's prospects? I mean, if owners of the stock -- however they came into possession of said stock -- were confident in DocuSign's prospects for continued growth, it would make sense for them to hold onto their shares rather than sell, right?
But they aren't, so perhaps they ... don't have such confidence?
Perhaps -- mind reading is hard business. But also, maybe the reason outside investors aren't following insiders' lead and selling their DocuSign shares today is because when insiders sell out, they're only selling shares that already exist. Conversely, when a company sells its own shares, it has to create them first, diluting existing shareholders' stake in the company.
At the very least, DocuSign isn't doing that. And in that respect, today's news actually is kind of good.
