Mvc Capital, Inc. and related entities: insider trades

10% owner at Equus Total Return, Inc. 3 open-market purchases and 4 sales not made under a pre-set plan, reported from May 23, 2014 to July 17, 2020. Trades reported separately by several related funds or companies are counted once, under this name.

Would copying Mvc Capital, Inc. and related entities’s purchases have beaten the S&P 500?

Too few purchases to judge. None of their purchases has 12 months of prices after the report; we judge insiders once they have 20. The figures below can swing a long way on a handful of trades. None of their purchases could be priced, so there is no copy portfolio. None of these trades can be measured yet: either the window after the report has not finished or the share price was under $5 when it was reported.

With 296 insiders tested, some will look skilled or unskilled by chance alone: when we replaced each insider’s stocks with random companies bought on the same days, about 5.7 cleared the bar ahead and 23.3 behind. One record on its own proves little.

Trade by trade

Mvc Capital, Inc. and related entities: trades against the S&P 500 afterwards
Measured	Average vs S&P 500	Median	Went the right way	Years	t-statistic	p-value	Evidence
Purchases, 3 months after the report	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years
Purchases, 6 months after the report	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years
Purchases, 12 months after the report	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years
Purchases, 12 months after the trade	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years
Sales, 3 months after the report	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years
Sales, 12 months after the report	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years
Sales, 12 months after the trade	—	—	—	—	—	—	Not enough years

“Average vs S&P 500” is the stock’s return including dividends minus the index’s over the same dates, from the close on the first trading day after the report, or from the close on the trade date. Only windows that have finished are counted. For sales, a negative figure means the stock lagged after it was sold, so selling was the right call (green). “Went the right way” is the share of purchases that beat the index, or of sales that trailed it. The t-statistic uses one average per year of reports, because one person’s trades bunch into the same stock and weeks, and needs trades in at least four different years; the p-value comes from the t distribution with that number of years (with four years, a t of 2 has p = 0.14). “Some evidence” means p under 5%, “strong evidence” p under 1% over at least six years.

Companies traded

Company	Title on the latest filing	Purchases	Sales	First report	Latest report
Equus Total Return, Inc. EQS	—	3	4	May 23, 2014	July 17, 2020

Trades and what followed

Moves are against the S&P 500; green means the trade went the insider’s way.

Reported	Traded	Company	Trade	Value	3 months after report	12 months after report	12 months after trade
July 17, 2020	July 16, 2020	EQS	Sale	$3,776,788	not yet	not yet	not yet
August 13, 2019	August 12, 2019	EQS	Sale	$985,462	not yet	not yet	not yet
July 30, 2019	July 29, 2019	EQS	Sale	$1,034,127	not yet	not yet	not yet
July 26, 2019	July 24, 2019	EQS	Sale	$2,068,254	not yet	not yet	not yet
June 16, 2014	June 12, 2014	EQS	Purchase	$2,376,713	not yet	not yet	not yet
June 5, 2014	June 3, 2014	EQS	Purchase	$2,040,000	not yet	not yet	not yet
May 23, 2014	May 21, 2014	EQS	Purchase	$1,230,137	not yet	not yet	not yet

Open-market purchases and sales of at least $10,000 in companies we cover, from SEC Form 4 filings; sales made under a pre-set Rule 10b5-1 plan are not shown. “Not yet” means the window has not finished or the share price was under $5 at entry. These are the shares’ moves after each trade: they say nothing about why Mvc Capital, Inc. and related entities traded and do not suggest the use of non-public information. How every insider compares · the insider trading backtest.