Corvex Dumps $57M in Illumina; Uber COO Buys In

Activist fund Corvex Management filed disclosures this month showing it sold over $57 million worth of ILMN shares between September 2 and 4. The filings also reveal Corvex principal Keith Meister personally sold a further $85 million in late August. Combined, that's well over $140 million in exits from one activist investor in less than two weeks — a striking reversal for a fund that holds a board seat.

Corvex's seat on Illumina's board makes these sales especially notable. Board-level insiders rarely exit in size without a strategic reason. Illumina's short interest sits at 7% of free float, and the stock has plenty of available borrow.

On the buy side, UBER President and COO Andrew MacDonald filed purchases totalling over $5.3 million in open-market buys on September 4. That's a discretionary, non-planned purchase by the company's second-highest-ranking executive. With Uber's market cap at $143 billion, the dollar amount is modest — but the signal is strong.

Also catching attention: two directors at psychedelic-drug biotech HELP (Cybin Inc.) each bought around $1.2 million in shares on September 3–4. Cluster buying by board members is a classic bullish insider signal.

NMI Holdings CEO Adam Pollitzer filed a $7.7 million sale on September 4. No 10b5-1 plan was indicated in the available data, making it a trade worth monitoring.

Insider data sourced from ORTEX. This is not financial advice.