Wall Street is heading into bank earnings season with a warning light flashing from inside the industry.
Financial executives bought shares of their own companies at the slowest pace in nearly 23 years in the July-to-September quarter, according to a VerityData report cited by Fortune. The firm counted 298 unique financial-sector buyers, meaning employees who made at least one purchase of their company’s stock. The report covers more than 3,000 financial services companies, from big banks to asset managers and insurers.
The number of sellers was higher, though not by an unusual amount, the report said. Insider buying across the broader stock market also weakened, falling 18% to 1,290 buyers from 1,580 in the second quarter.
The timing matters. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are set to post third-quarter results on Oct. 13, and Morgan Stanley follows on Oct. 14. Trading desks have been setting records, and blockbusters like SpaceX’s June offering have given bankers reason to celebrate. But the appetite inside the sector has clearly cooled.
Ben Silverman, head of research at VerityData, said the lack of buying suggests insiders are 'skittish' about valuations. He said that when equity prices get to a point where insiders see a gap between market pricing and fair value, they tend to hold off.
Jesse Fried, a Harvard Law School professor, said fewer financial executives buying their own shares can be 'a bearish signal for that sector,' because insider purchases tend to predict future market-beating returns for their firms. Not everyone sees much value in the signal. Nejat Seyhun, a finance professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, told Fortune he is 'very skeptical that this means anything.'
Seyhun said bank stocks are especially hard to forecast because their performance depends heavily on macro factors, including monetary policy, interest rates and inflation. Those forces, he said, are not the kind of information an executive can possess.
The backdrop is not helping. Fortune said the IPO market has stalled, with Oura and Bamboo Insurance delaying their offerings last month. The Fed raised interest rates around the same time, which can make corporate dealmaking more difficult. Companies are also taking out massive loans for their AI plans, adding another layer of risk for large Wall Street firms if clients cannot pay them back.
Bank stocks have already been lagging. As of Wednesday, the KBW bank index was down nearly 11% over the past month, while the S&P 500 was up 1%. The financial index is still up 3% so far in 2026.
The numbers come first. When the people closest to the balance sheet stop buying, the market has already learned to pay attention. Capital rewards clear rules, and this is a season where rates, deal flow and valuation discipline are all moving in the same direction: tighter. For investors, that is not a narrative problem. It is a margin problem.
