Countrywide's Mozilo takes $140,000,000 off the top - and sends the CFO out to pump up the stock yesterday (so he can sell some more)

The sheer volume and brazenness of this insider selling at Countrywide is staggering. Nearly $600,000,000 in sales, and $73,000 in buys. No, that's not a misprint.

And in the middle of this historic subprime / lending meltdown, instead of coming clean like HSBC and announcing the size of the write-off, Mozilo sends the CFO out yesterday to pump up the stock (so he can sell some more), having him say "We're a top-conditioned athlete" and that they have no problems, unlike all their competitors that are going belly-up.

So, why is the top conditioned athlete selling everything he has then? If times are so rosy ahead, wouldn't he be buying or holding instead?

Note: I'm gleefully short CFC.

Wall Street Journal: How Countrywide CEO Wins Amid Mortgage Mayhem

If you're looking for a big winner in the subprime-mortgage meltdown, try Angelo Mozilo.

The take-no-prisoners chief executive of Countrywide Financial sold $140 million of his personal holdings of Countrywide's stock in the past 14 months -- before last week's news that the delinquency rate on his company's subprime mortgages was soaring.

Even so, he expects shareholders to be grateful.

Mr. Mozilo's company didn't lead the subprime race-to-the-bottom in recent years, during which mortgage companies offered ever-easier terms to ever-more questionable borrowers. But he didn't slam on the brakes, either.