The market takes an upward turn, and the insiders head for the exits.

In the wake of the largest stock market rally in 71 years, according to Bloomberg, the sale of insider shares has reached its most aggressive levels in the past two years. Insiders of companies in the S&P 500 were net sellers for 14 weeks in a row. Six people at Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), for example, sold $8.2 million in company stock.

Activist investor Carl Icahn is reportedly interested in taking another run at Delphi Corp. after a federal judge ordered the bankrupt auto parts supplier to open the sale of its assets to potential bidders, in addition to the previous offer from private-equity firm Platinum Equity.

Icahn's auto-parts company, Federal-Mogul Corp. (NASDAQ: FDML), had held discussions with Delphi, but the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, which was set up by the Obama administration to oversee the restructuring of the U.S. auto industry, preferred the Platinum Equity deal.

Do you remember Countrywide Mortgage? Just before the subprime debacle, Countrywide was one of the biggest players in the mortgage business. A man named Angelo Mozilo became chief executive. The company was on a roll. Its motto was "let's think outside the box." And it did.

Countrywide was the first to process applications by computer. Then it let the computer assign a credit score. Then, in a bizarre move, if the credit score was too low, Countrywide just tacked on a few more percentage points to the interest on the mortgage.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ: WMT) sure has a storied history. Borne out of the backwoods of Arkansas, the company founded by Sam Walton has gone on to become one of the most efficient and ruthless retailers ever.

At the same tie, it's become the world's largest company by revenues as well. Perhaps some of that "biggest..." mentality has gotten into Sam Walton's son -- Rob Walton's -- head, as he just reportedly ordered one of the most custom, gold-laden Ferraris most of us have ever seen.

Can you believe this! The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its own employees. It's gotten so bad that the SEC had to establish new rules for employee trading. Right now the SEC has at least two employees under investigation for possible insider trading. The FBI had to be notified and may also be called in to conduct investigations of possible insider trading.

Would you believe that employees can trade the stocks of companies they are investigating? Yes, as of now that's true. So guess what the SEC is doing to correct the problem? They will employ an outside firm to track employee trading in real time. Another new rule will be that employees cannot trade stocks of companies under investigation and will require them to get clearance before making any trade. From this we can infer that employees have been trading stocks of companies under investigation right along.

McDonald's (NYSE: MCD - option chain) Vice Chairman and CEO James Skinner sold 150,000 shares of the stock on the open market last week. That equates to $8.0M of selling against only a scant $269K of insider buying in the past three months. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on MCD.

This morning, MCD opened at $54.34. So far today the stock has hit a low of $53.75 and a high of $54.46. As of 11:55, MCD is trading at $54.02, down $0.18 (-0.3%). The chart for MCD looks bullish and S&P gives MCD a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy ranking.

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH - option chain) stock is falling today after Chairman of the Board Richard T. Burke sold 100,000 shares of the stock on the open market last Friday. That equates to $2.9M of selling against no insider buying in the past two months. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on UNH.

This morning, UNH opened at $27.06. So far today the stock has hit a low of $26.37 and a high of $27.80. As of 11:30, UNH is trading at $26.98, down $0.61 (-2.2%). The chart for UNH looks bullish and S&P gives UNH a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy ranking.

Obama has definitely walked into office with a lot of things on his plate, and consumer credit debt has to be one of the top priorities.

As a society, Americans are pretty deep in credit card debt, and once you fall even one payment behind, you are asking for big trouble. While the current recession has led to banks bringing in fewer dollars, it has also been a golden chance for them to be abusive to loyal customers.

Holy smokes! The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve may have created a monster with the creation of bank "stress tests." Now the Fed has buttoned the lips of the bankers not to disclose any details of their "stress tests" for fear that it might affect the stock market adversely.

Paul Miller of FBR Capital Markets said: if you allow banks to discuss their findings, by inference, those who don't say anything must have poor results. U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner said that the test are like those used by doctors to determine a patient's health.

Shares of American Apparel (AMEX: APP) have been poor performers since the company went public through a special-purpose acquisition vehicle, even though the company's same-store sales numbers have been incredibly impressive.

The company's shares have rebounded recently following the announcement of a major investment by Lion Capital. Now CEO Dov Charney is making his first trades in his company's stock since it went public and guess what? He's buying: 855,000 shares for $2.67 million, including 460,000 shares purchased on margin.

Boy, I'll tell you, owning Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) has been tough lately. I love the company's prospects. It's got great franchises: Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft. It's doing better than rivals Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and THQ (NASDAQ: THQI). But the stock has been hitting a lot of technical resistance. Not only that, but CEO Bobby Kotick recently sold a bunch of shares (over a million, actually).

Well, in terms of that insider sale, we can all relax. Basically, Kotick was exercising options that were set to expire relatively soon, says Barron's. That accounted for one million shares. Now, he did also sell over 240,000 shares that were stored in a trust. The mitigating factor here is that Kotick operates under restrictions as to when he can and cannot sell stock. So, in an overall sense, we can give him a pass on this one. Silicon Alley Insider supports this sentiment, and talks about another insider's sale in similar terms.

Investors who look to insider sentiment as a sign of when to buy stocks will be sorely disappointed with the latest news on insider trading: Over the past 90 days, insiders at U.S. companies have bought $670.2 million worth of stock while dumping $2.8 billion on the market. In the last 60 trading days of 2008, insider buying was down by about 16% over the previous year. That sounds bad, but it actually buys a larger chunk of a stock market that's down more than 30%. So you could actually make the case that insider buying is up!

Matt Krantz reports that the reason for the less-than-enthusiastic insider buying could be driven by the weakening balance sheets of the executives themselves. While CEO compensation certainly hasn't declined along with the market, the value of executives' portfolios has tanked. "Some CEOs face tax bills on shares they received as compensation," the USA Today reports -- even though those shares may not be worth as much as they were when the taxes were calculated.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Shows Confidence With Another Big Share Purchase."

It's true. Ken Lewis purchased 200,000 shares of his company's battered stock on Wednesday, the day before the stock fell to it's lowest level since 1984.

Maybe Bank of America shares are undervalued and maybe they aren't. But seriously: Why would insider buying on the part of an executive who drove the company into a ditch precisely by making bad decisions about what to buy be a good indicator? If anything, I'd be inclined to sell anything that Ken Lewis is buying.

When Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) announced that CEO Brad Anderson would retire this summer, the obvious choice to replace him was current COO and President Brian Dunn. After all, Dunn is a Best Buy vet and has had a hand in making Best Buy the top consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. With Anderson and Dunn running the show, Best Buy rose past every competitor and held the larger mass merchants at bay.

The retailer has not had an easy time with the recent consumer spending slowdown, but its fundamentals are very solid and it retains a competitive advantage. Consumers continue spending money at Best Buy, and voting with dollars is a sign of success. Dunn will face one of the hardest times in Best Buy's history since consumers have tightened their collective purse strings. Still, he is the right pick and Best Buy's long-term future continues to be very bright, the current retail malaise not withstanding.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says recent purchases at Bank of America and JPMorgan are a good sign, but they don't solve everything.

Fool me once? Remember when Bob Steel bought a million shares of Wachovia? I went nuts over that purchase, mouthing all the usual shibboleths: Insiders sell for a million reasons, but they only buy for one reason -- to make money.

I remind myself of that because, obviously, not all buys in the open market by insiders are equal. Ken Lewis' buy of 200,000 shares of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) may be a vote of confidence, along with buys by other board members, but what if it is all Steel? It certainly doesn't match the amount that Steel bought.

So the jury's out. How about Jamie Dimon's buy of 500,000 JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) shares slightly below the current price here? Better. More money. And in Dimon's case, a welcome reprieve from his own bashing 10 points higher when he was interviewed by Erin Burnett of CNBC. More conviction.