That observation springs to mind following further shares sales by Joakim Sundell, a non-executive director of the securities and fund administration software provider.

He topped directors' trades this week when he collected more than $5 million from scrip sales at $4.92.

After going public in 2005 at $1 a share, GBST saw its shares improve four-fold.

But with indifferent earnings the shares later spent four years in the wilderness when they didn't move far from $1.

From 2013 the business got its act together and the scrip rocketed from $1 to $6.84 last year.

Now, while there was some director buying, there was fairly consistent selling over the years at well under current prices.

There are two schools of thought on director selling: the first is that it indicates nothing and might be to raise funds for house buying, a divorce settlement or some other purpose.

But some punters do pay close attention to sales and they might point to disposals by some directors of various mining services companies during the boom.

In any event, sales of GBST shares at 87 cents in 2012, at $1.37 in 2013 and $3.70 in 2014 enabled buyers of directors' paper to bank some terrific gains.

In recent days GBST shares have improved close enough to 12 per cent due reportedly to a GBST client expanding its customer base.

Meanwhile, extract GBST from proceedings this week and there wasn't a lot left: the scorecard registered $1.6 million to $7.6 million in favour of sellers.

Nearmap, a one-time small-cap favourite, has got a wriggle on in recent days due to improved sales numbers for the third quarter.

Scrip in the aerial imagery outfit jumped from 40 cents to as high as 59 cents.

Chairman Peter James paid 51 cents a share.