Cohu's CEO sold $5.1 million in five days, and no insider has bought a share in a year

The chief executive cashed a three-year-old award in two cuts

Luis Muller, Cohu's president and chief executive, sold 55,794 shares at an exact $60.00 on 21 September, then 27,236 more at an exact $65.00 four days later: $5.1 million in five days ¹². Every share traces to equity acquired from the company in March 2023, and both sales ran on a Rule 10b5-1(c) plan adopted on 28 May↗ ¹³⁴.

The plan is mechanical; the meter is not

Cohu closed at $67.00 on the day of the second sale, up 187.92% since January and within sight of a 52-week high of $74.60, after a month of sector-driven swings that included a 7.7% jump on 17 September with no Cohu news attached ⁵⁶⁹. Muller still holds 844,589 shares directly, 508,101 of them unvested units, roughly 1.8% of the 47.3 million shares outstanding; the two tranches took out about 9% of the stake he held before the first trade ²³. Early coverage read the sale as routine↗, and by the paperwork it is ⁷.

In a year of record prices, not one insider buy

Cohu's insider ledger for the past 12 months↗ shows $9.6 million sold and zero shares bought ⁶. GuruFocus pegs the stock at 35 times trailing earnings against a five-year median of 17.8 times, for a company that has lost money on a GAAP basis in each of the past eight quarters, $38.8 million over the trailing year ⁶⁷⁸.

The bull case is real, and it is fully priced

The quarter was genuine: revenue of $149 million beat estimates by $5 million, adjusted EPS of $0.26 doubled consensus, test-cell utilization ran near 80%, and the Q3 guide of $163–177 million↗ points to the biggest quarter in two years ⁵¹¹.

The counterparty is a model and a squeeze

About $190 million of the $850 million high-performance-computing pipeline↗ is actually qualified ¹¹. GuruFocus's model puts fair value at $29.19 ⁶. Eight analysts still rate the stock a buy with a $70.88 mean target, one bull just raised his target to $95 on a 70.5x forward non-GAAP multiple, and 18.35% of the float is sold short ⁵¹⁰.

The next reading comes on 10 November

Cohu holds its investor day on 10 November, after Q3 results ¹¹. The plan was written in May. The ledger was written all year: at these prices, the only people inside Cohu turning its equity into cash are the ones who were paid in it.