Eighteen months into the AI boom, the conversation has shifted from 'is this real' to 'when does it end?' The honest answer: the people closest to the cap-ex cycle — the executives and board members of the chipmakers, hyperscalers, and AI-adjacent industrials — aren't behaving like the music is about to stop.
We track every Form 4 buy and sell across the Russell 3000 in real time. The pattern in 2026 has been unmistakable: net buying among CTOs and operating heads at semiconductor designers, even as the share prices have run hard. That's not the behaviour of insiders who think the cycle has peaked.
Equally telling is what the insiders are NOT doing. The classic top-of-cycle signature — heavy CEO selling, broad-based 10b5-1 plan acceleration, secondaries — has been notably absent. The insider data isn't a guarantee, but it's a strong contrarian filter against the bearish narrative.
Key takeaways
- CTO-level buying at chip designers in Q1+Q2 2026
- Hyperscaler insiders adding ahead of cap-ex announcements
- AI-adjacent industrials seeing director-level cluster buys
- Notable ABSENCE of the classic top-of-cycle insider selling pattern