Diageo and Unilever directors cash in

This reinforces our recent recommendation to move the shares from a buy to a hold. Admittedly, Diageo is expanding fast and finding strong growth in both emerging and developed markets, but it’s difficult to stick to a buy recommendation when the shares are rated at almost 20 times forecast earnings, far above their long-term rating.

Unilever, another global behemoth, is also trading at an all-time high. It too had an impressive year, with emerging markets a major driver behind the group’s sales growth. It adapts quickly to the changing retail landscape, and is therefore scrapping categories and brands that drag growth, while focusing on the hottest areas. The group has been able to expand its margin by cutting costs and focusing on pricing discipline.

This has also allowed Unilever to cut net debt and the group could have net cash in two years. What all of this means is that the shares aren’t cheap, and that’s perhaps what chief operating officer Harish Manwani had in mind when he decided to sell 36,000 of them, worth nearly £1m at 2,733p each. Nevertheless, we still believe Unilever is attractively priced compared with its peers and that there's more upside to come. In fact, since we updated our buy recommendation in January, the shares have risen 10 per cent.

Julia Bradshaw

Cairn Energy directors buy

Following publication of its 2012 full-year report, a quartet of directors from Cairn Energy (CNE), including chief executive Simon Thomson and chief financial officer Jann Brown, collectively paid £293,109 for a total of 104,090 shares in the oil and gas explorer. The group is endeavouring to re-establish a revenue stream after it sold the bulk of its holding in Cairn India, with current work centred on a handful of exploration/appraisal wells in the North Sea. Cairn has effectively put its Greenland operations temporarily on ice following a fallow exploration campaign, but the group's share price could conceivably benefit from a near-term upgrade at the Skarfjell discovery well, while, ironically, takeover speculation has emerged linking Cairn India (which is controlled by Vedanta Resources) with a bid for Cairn Energy itself.

Mark Robinson

Buys

Sells

Table compiled by Robert Ansted

Key to abbreviations: ch = chairman; ce = chief executive; cfo = chief financial officer; fd = finance director; coo = chief operating officer; cs =company secretary; md = managing director