Shatner Pares His Holdings in Priceline.com

William Shatner led a fleet of sellers when he unloaded stock last month from options he earned promoting Priceline.com Inc.

His timing couldn’t have been better.

The pitchman for the online shopping site, former star of the “Star Trek” TV series, sold a third of his holdings in March, days before Priceline.com shares tumbled amid a tech sell-off. The sale of 35,000 shares earned him $3 million and change; it would be worth only $2.5 million now.

Shatner, at the helm of his William Shatner Family Trust, was one of a swarm of Internet executives and employees to take advantage of soaring stock prices in March to sell a record amount of stock from options they exercised.

Sales of restricted shares--often stock received from exercising salary options--surged to $25.3 billion in March from $23.4 billion in February, according to Washington Service.

March sales of restricted shares were almost double those in January. Official figures will be released in mid-April.

Those who sold might be glad they did. Since reaching an all-time high March 10, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index has plunged 17%. Priceline.com stock dropped 24%.

Watching insider sales and purchases may help explain the declines. It may also go some way to limiting future gains in the Nasdaq, said Baruch Lev, professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

The Nasdaq rose 20.33 points Wednesday after sliding more than 423 points over the previous two days.

“Sometimes when the mood changes, people try to salvage as much profit as they have,” Lev said. “One big negative of stock options is this destabilizing effect once the market turns down.”

As the Nasdaq hit new highs in February, insiders sold $19 billion of shares, 12 times as much as they bought, according to the Washington Service.