Lazard Ltd., one of the world's leading financial advisory and asset management firms, provides advice on mergers and acquisitions, strategic matters, restructuring and capital structure, capital raising and corporate finance, as well as asset management services to corporations, partnerships, institutions, governments, and individuals. It is headquartered in New York City, has more than 3,200 employees, and operates in more than 40 cities across more than 25 countries, including major financial hubs like Paris, London, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo.

Insider-sentiment data provided by Vickers Stock Research continues to show that insiders have taken to the sidelines. Yes, earnings season (when insiders are restricted from trading) is a factor. But a toppy stock market at a time when the newsflow is volatile is almost assuredly a contributor. So how does the data from Vickers stack up against actual market activity? Pretty well, we think. Over the past month -- taking into account a few weeks when insiders could trade ahead of earnings season and the past two weeks of the trading lull -- the S&P 500 has been as flat as a pancake and the Nasdaq Composite is off about 1.5%. Not a bad time to be neutral. On a sector basis, the group with the weakest eight-week sell/buy ratio from Vickers is Information Technology, and that sector (using the IYW ETF) is off about 2% over the last month. The sector with the best eight-week sell/buy ratio is Energy, and that sector (using the IYE ETF) is up 9% over the last month. Digging deeper on Vickers' sector data, four sectors currently have bullish one-week sell/buy ratios, five are neutral, and two are bearish. Of the bullish sectors, Healthcare (which had the greatest level of activity across all sectors this week) was joined by the Financial, Materials, and Consumer Staples. The neutral sector are Communication Services, Energy, Industrial, Information Technology, and Real Estate. The two sectors that are bearish are Consumer Discretionary and Utilities. These results had little impact on the eight-week sector sell/buy ratios, which are unchanged from last week and where only Information Technology is bearish. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at Liquidia Corp. (NCM: LQDA) and Travel + Leisure Co. (NYSE: TNL).

The S&P 500 (SPX, +0.9%) rose for an eighth straight week, as did the S&P 100 (OEX, +0.5%). The Nasdaq added 0.5%, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) gained 1.2%, the S&P MidCap 400 (MDY) tacked on 1.8%, the Russell 2000 (IWM) popped 2.7%, and the S&P Small Cap 600 (SML) increased 2.5%. One might assume that breadth was good, with strength in the smaller-market-cap indices. But it wasn't. The five-day average of NYSE advancers-decliners was only 276.

Lazard Ltd., one of the world's leading financial advisory and asset management firms, provides advice on mergers and acquisitions, strategic matters, restructuring and capital structure, capital raising and corporate finance, as well as asset management services to corporations, partnerships, institutions, governments, and individuals. It is headquartered in New York City, has more than 3,200 employees, and operates in more than 40 cities across more than 25 countries, including major financial hubs like Paris, London, Tokyo, and Sao Paulo.