The Insider Report

‘m Giving Robert Coury another Change to F*ck Me, Insider Trading Week Ending 12-18-20

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For trade details click on this link to the trades   PROGENITY Inc up 38.05%  COO Silvestry bought 58,081 shares of PROG at $4.58.  Progenity announced on December 17th  that it is expanding the availability of COVID-19 RT-PCR testing across the United States to support the rising demand for testing. Testing is performed using the Thermo Fisher Applied Biosystems TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit, under Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA. Although the stock rocketed on this news combined with insider buying, it’s been a rough haul for shareholders.  Give this one a little time to pullback. PROG recently did a … Read more

Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me-Insider Buying Week Ending 12/4/20

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For trade details click on this link to the trades   ATLAS TECHNICAL CONSULTANTS Inc up 28.91% Organogenesis Holdings Inc. up 3.04% Kraft Heinz Co up 2.71% MARAVAI LIFESCIENCES HOLDINGS Inc up 2.52% BIOGEN Inc up 1.89% American Homes 4 Rent up 1.89% HORMEL FOODS CORP up 0.87% HC2 HOLDINGS Inc down -1.15% CNX Resources Corp down-1.27% Black Knight Inc.  down -1.27% Biogen is our pick of the week.  Biogen made a fresh push to get aducanumab approved after the early read on the trials was discouring. The stock ran up significantly on the potential for the first drug to … Read more

CASI Pharmaceuticals $CASI Insider Buy of the Week

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For trade details click on this link to the trades PLx Pharma Inc. up 50.51% Party City Holdco Inc. up 22% FLEXSTEEL INDUSTRIES INC up 16.34% COTY Inc up 14.66% Pandion Therapeutics Inc. up 14.29%plxp CASI Pharmaceuticals up 12.75% StarTek Inc. UP 12.54% ZOGENIX Inc up 7.10% CHIASMA INC up 6.39% Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co Ltd. up 2.02% SAFETY INSURANCE GROUP INC up 0.39% DANAHER CORP down 4.14% Just a heads up, the Insiders Fund Not so Daily Digest will be moving to a subscription-based model in the near future.  It will always be free of course for investors in … Read more

Insiders Crush Markets- Average Buy up 8.11% vs.-0.77% for the S&P 500

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For trade details click on this link to the trades Waitr Holdings Inc. up 36% PLx Pharma Inc. up 35.2% GreenSky Inc. up 17.90% TENNECO INC up 15.90% SURO CAPITAL CORP. up 14.33$ Pandion Therapeutics Inc. 11.90% MultiPlan Corp up 6.32% AtriCure Inc.  up 4.74% MBIA INC up 4.70% MORGAN STANLEY up 4.35% Reynolds Consumer Products Inc. up 4.22% Paramount Group Inc. up 0.52% NATIONAL HEALTH INVESTORS INC down -2.38% G1 Therapeutics Inc. down -6.59% FLEXSTEEL INDUSTRIES INC down -9.05%   Director Ortale bought 266,113 shares of Waitr Holdings, a 2nd tier restaurant delivery service.   WAITR was on their way … Read more

Insider buys were up 9.22% versus the S&P 500 up 2.16% for Week Ending November 13th

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For trade details click on this link to the trades Integer Holdings Corp up 19.94% ViewRay Inc. up 20.92% Camping World Holdings Inc. up 14.05% Magellan Midstream Partners L.P. up 12.94% Aon plc up 9.64% CALIX INC up 9.59% BlackRock Capital Investment Corp up 8.98% PARSONS CORP up 9.29% LIONS GATE ENTERTAINMENT CORP up 6.63% GREEN DOT CORP up 4.80% Vishay Precision Group Inc. up 5.37% ASSURANT Inc up 4.47% VERTEX PHARMACEUTICALS INC up 3.75% TUPPERWARE BRANDS CORP up 3.49% Dun & Bradstreet Holdings Inc. up 4.14% Hanesbrands Inc. up 1.73% NEW RELIC Inc up 1.02% LOUISIANA-PACIFIC CORP down -0.57% … Read more

RALLY ON

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As the votes came in and the outcome of the Presidential election became clear,  investors voted with their dollars.  The market ripped 7.25% which was the largest election week rally in history.   Not even our insiders could compete with the raw animal spirits unleased by the belief that a Democratic President would be restrained by a Republican Senate.  Gridlock, strangely enough, is celebrated.  There is another narrative-perhaps it was a relief rally that the most disruptive and unpredictable President in a lifetime was gone?   Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. up 9.84% CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL Inc up 7.49% Del Taco … Read more

Brutal week in the Market- Insider Buys Outperform on Average by 600%

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For trade details click on this link to the trades Selecta Biosciences up 12.90% HomeStreet up 4.30% International Business Machines up 3.64% Raytheon Technologies ups 3.64% SMART Global Holdings up 1.54% Cytodyn up 0.16% Employers Holdings up 0.03% Kimberly Clark down 0.06% Ares Capital down 0.65% Pulte Group down -1.76% Crown Castle down -3.72% Universal Stainless & Alloy down 3.72% Agree Realty down 5.51%   Raging pandemic, fears of shutdowns, and the specter of a Presidential election fought in the courts or worse yet the streets-Guns and ammunitions are flying off the shelf.  If you’re for Trump, the market is … Read more

Not Much in the Way of Insider Buys Week 10-9-20 but Kyle Bass files on $SBE

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LIQUIDITY SERVICES INC up 43.2% AMAZON COM INC up 2.92% Medtronic plc up There wasn’t much happening in new insider buys but when CEO Angrick bought 94,567 shares of Liquidity Services at $7.57, it lit a match under this dormant stock. LQDT roared 43% on this vote of confidence.  Liquidity Services operates a network of e-commerce marketplaces. Its online auction marketplaces include: Liquidation.com, GovDeals.com, Network International, GoIndustry DoveBid, IronDirect, Machinio, and Secondipity.com. Indra Nooyi has been regularly adding to her Amazon holdings since becoming a director.  This purchase of 92 shares of AMZN at $3,193.22 looks more like the former … Read more

The Week Democrats Found Religion and Republicans Found Science

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POTUS tweeted he tested positive for Covid-19.  Tellingly it was the most liked Trump tweet ever.  The President’s demand for loyalty is now looking like it could extend to death as Trump conducts super spreader events and legions of followers succumb to the virus. The market had its worst September in 9 years.  Insider buying was anemic.   In spite of the headlines, the market was up 1.52% for the week.  Our notable insider buys were up 5.12% STEELCASE INC up 14.44% At Home Group Inc. up 12.10% PHILLIPS 66 PARTNERS LP  up 5.12% GOLUB CAPITAL BDC Inc. up 5/09% Douglas … Read more

Insiders Kill it Again- Largely Led by Cassava Sciences $SAVA a potential 200 Bagger

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CASSAVA SCIENCES INC up 28.59% CORPORATE OFFICE PROPERTIES TRUST up 2.57% GOLUB CAPITAL BDC Inc. up 0.54% HARTFORD FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP Inc down 0.50% BROADCOM INC down -1.29% Casssava was up 28.59% on the week while the S&P notched its 4th consecutive week in decline, down 0.52%. There is an old adage on Wall Street, Sell Rosh Hashana buy Yom Kippur.  Historically it does show some uncanny consistency but perhaps it’s more from the fact the Jewish Holiday routinely falls toward quarter end when insiders are blacked out from buying their own stock than observant Jews absent from the trading … Read more

Insiders Largely Immune from Tech Momentum Sell-Off

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The Insider Fund had one of its best weeks this year, largely immune from the Nasdaq market momentum collapse. Investors that lack confidence bail easily.  Nothing engenders confidence more than seeing corporate insiders buying their own stock. The finger points the way to real time results.  If you are interested in our trades, follow us on Twitter.   CASSAVA SCIENCES INC  43.21% IGM Biosciences Inc.    38.01% Party City Holdco Inc.  18.49% FLEXSTEEL INDUSTRIES INC  16.10% GUESS INC  13.94% CHARLES & COLVARD LTD  13.51% Franchise Group Inc.  8.80% Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co Ltd.   7.64% FLOTEK INDUSTRIES INC  6.25%  CRYOLIFE INC  4.51% SCHLUMBERGER LIMITED  4.35% AFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP … Read more

”s about to Ignite $UPWK Upwork

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The work from home economy is as hot as a firecracker, it’s as hot as a forest fire in California, and it’s about to ignite $UPWK Upwork Upwork Director Gregory Gretsch continues to buy large dollar amounts of gig economy upstart freelancer/independent contractor model Upwork. This time he bought 547,844 shares of UPWK at $14.71.  This is one of our largest holdings. We are big fans of Upwork and use their services repeatedly. It’s a great model.  They have a couple of direct competitors, Israeli-based Fiverr, and Freelancer.com.Since neither Fivvr nor Upwork are yet profitable, conventional fundamental analysis may not be … Read more

These are the Insider Buys that Matter Week Ending 8-14-20

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Earnings season is almost over and with it the blackout period that restricts corporate insiders from buying their own company’s stock.  Animal spirits are lighting up the market as insiders are adding fuel to the fire with the biggest increase in buying since the March lows.  Normally insiders buy their stock when it’s cheap and you see less buying when the market is making new highs.  Not this time!  Barry Diller shook up the online gambling world with his Interactive Corp IAC  disclosure that it had gone over the 10% reporting threshold with its most recent purchase of 9,705,785  shares of MGM at … Read more

Some Insiders are Killing it- Everything is UP- Week Ending February 7, 2020

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Wow- did you see our pick of the week, Groupon?  Groupon rocketed over 50% Friday on better than expected quarterly earnings and an enormous short squeeze. GRPN traded 13 times normal volume which makes it prime for a price reversal. I listened to the earnings call and not sure how convincing the turnaround story will be. Didn’t hear on attaboy from the handful of analysts obligatorily covering the fallen unicorn.  It’s still mind number to think they turned down $5.7 Billion from Google. I’m going to make a mental note that when Google offers me $5.7 billion for my company, … Read more

Stock Market Makes All Time High, Real Estate on Fire, and the Worst GDP in a Century

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Nice thing about math, there is not much point in debating it. The numbers are the numbers and some insider buys are much better than others. This dynamic spreadsheet will show you which ones. Here is the link to the trades- Warren Buffet bought $1.5 billion of Bank of America’s stock on the open market last week and no one is even talking about it.  It wasn’t that long ago that the news that Buffet was buying would cause of stampeded of buying by his followers.  Apple crushes 2nd quarter earnings, announces 4 for 1 stock split, it’s stock skyrockets … Read more

Bed Bath Beyond Dog Howls 17% Last Week after Insider Buy

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Here is the link to the trades- Once again Bed Bath Beyond BBBY teaches us you can make a lot of money from a bad stock if you buy it right. That’s certainly what Director Suge Gove did after the Company reported earnings, the stock cratered, and every analyst trash talked the company down.  Gove scooped up 34,000 shares at $7.89 and by weeks end was up 17%.  Not bad, Suge; I bet you wish you could sell. Insiders are subject to short swing rules that prohibit doing just that.  BBBY seems on terminal descent with Amazon, Wayfair, and now … Read more

The Willing Suspension of Disbelief- Insiders are Scarce Week Ending July 10th

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 Insiders buys were far and few in between last week. You can see them at this link to the trades- The most notable and outlandish was Harold Hamm’s monster buy of $47.6 Million of Continental Resources CLR at $17.77.  This is all the more remarkable since June, Hamm has bought $178 Million of this beleaguered oil and gas Bakken fracking pioneer.  Hamm has tons of this stock. Hamm is a big supporter of Trump who as much as he professes his love for the industry, the price of crude has cratered on his regime. Perhaps he feels oil will … Read more

Reality Check- Insider Buying Week Ending 6-26-20

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It was not a fun week for longs as Coronavirus is on the rise and insiders are blacked out before 2nd quarter earnings. I doubt that insiders were chomping on the bit to buy as the market rebound from the March lows has them unloading their holdings at a record pace. There were a few buys of interest and we highlight them here.  Until we figure out why our embedded Google sheet is not displaying in the RSS feed in our MailChimp blast, here is the link to the trades- Founder and former CEO Eric Lefkofsky bought $5.39 Million worth … Read more

Just how good are insider buying tips? See for yourself, they trounce the S&P 500

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We’ve added a new feature to our blog/newsletter about insider buying. As you know, each week we analyze the most notable buys and try to understand what they see and share this knowledge with the readers.  We don’t look at just any insider buys but ones we deem notable. A more detailed explanation of how we determine “notable” is described in detail below. Just how good are these insights?  Well now you can see for yourself.  From here on out, each week and for all of June and May we included a dynamically updated spreadsheet that tracks these highlighted insider … Read more

”t forget the Covid-19 test kit $QDEL Insider Buying Week of 6-19-20

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These are the insider buys that matter for last week. For real time insider alerts subscribe to our Twitter at https://twitter.com/theinsidersfund.  When insiders buy, stocks make knee jerk moves up. The best time period to make bank is the next three days, perhaps five and then the prior trend sets in.  Follow us on Twitter for the names we take an interest in. This week’s top movers are Camping World Holdings up 27.03% and Quidel, up 29.88% The average 3 day gain was 5.25% and holding just three days longer pushed it to 8.04%.  If there is no 5 day … Read more

What are Insiders Buying at Market Highs- Week 6-12-20?

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Fibrogen CEO Conterno bought 27,800 shares at $35.47.  After last year’s unexpected passing of founder and long-time helmsman Thomas Neff, FibroGen needed a permanent successor—and with its big roxadustat launch looming, that new CEO would ideally know the ropes in kidney and metabolic diseases. Conterno, who came from Lilly six months ago as its U.S. business chief and worldwide diabetes lead, became FibroGen’s new CEO, in January. This is his first open market purchase.  Here is a link to a  recent Goldman Sachs investor presentation According to their website, FGEN is dedicated to creating innovative, first-in-class medicines for the treatment … Read more

Riots, Protests, Pandemics and a Little Insider Buying Week Ending June 5th, 2020

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The monster purchase by Mitchell Rales of 141,20 shares of Danaher Corp DHR at $164.69 represented just 0.4% change in his holdings.  If an insider is doubling his holdings, this likely has more significance than just upping your holdings by 4/10 tenths of a percent, but this was still a monster buy and I wanted to analyze it. Danaher has made the Rales brothers billionaires and it seems they are none to eager to unload it. Not sure what to make of Director Glazer’s purchase of $1.7 Million of HCHC.  HC2 Holdings is a publicly traded investment vehicle with Philip … Read more

Quiet Insider Buying Shortened Week May 29th 2020

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Jazz Pharmaceutical Director Seamus Mulligan bought 50,000 shares at $111.08. Before investors pile in behind that enforcement, it’s worth considering Mulligan bought 50,000 shares back in 11/15/18 at $144.56. JAZZ had a few analyst downgrades after releasing last quarter’s earnings report. JAZZ is a leader in sleep medicine and has a growing hematology/oncology portfolio. Dynavax Technologies DVAX is a startup biotech.  The priced a 14M share offering at $5 below the last closing price osf $5.66. Director Jack bought 1,000,000 shares at $5. Do you think he knew that DVAX would announce a week letter that Sky would report a … Read more

Are stay at home stocks the “new dot-Com?

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This is a post of a letter that went out to partners of The Insiders Fund, so there is not much new on this other than many of our holdings in the Fund skyrocketed today with a sudden reversal of trend, value stocks trumping growth. I wouldn’t bet on this continuing but I’ll gladly take it. Lincoln Financial was up as much as 17% before pulling back to close up 11.20%. Nasdaq makes a new high and 30 million people file for unemployment. It all makes more sense when I heard this CNBC report today that the #1 usage of the … Read more

Mercury General Auto Insurer Chairman Puts the Petal to the Metal

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 Mercury General Chairman George Joseph buys $9.2 Million more of this California property and casualty insurer.  MCY  with a current 6.4% dividend yield and a 34 year history of consecutive dividend raises, looks particularly tempting.  It’s off 44% from its high and the Chairman of the Board has bought $24 million worth of the company’s stock in the last 10 days. People are driving less, auto claims are down. The potential loss of reinvestment income due to lower bond rates seems overstated by this drop in price. Besides Mercury has been historically a  relatively bigger player in the equity markets, … Read more

Insider Buying Picks Up- Week Ending 5-15-20

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Insider buying picked up this week across several depressed sectors like insurance,  small regional banks,  gaming, furniture, REITS, building products, restaurants and retailers, automotive and motorcycle and utility stocks. The buy of the week is property and casualty California auto insurer, Mercury General MCY.  Chairman of the Board George Joseph continued accumulating stock with $15 million of stock purchases at an average price of $35.95. MCY is down from it’s high this year of $52.  MCY yields 6.65%. People are driving less and insurance claim losses are down  as a result of that. Offsetting this, reinvestment rates on bond portfolios … Read more

A Few Insider Buys in some Beleaguered Stocks Week Ending May 9th 2020

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Private prison operator GEO Geo Group CEO Anthony Quinn continues to buy stock in this out of favor REIT play yielding an astounding 16.7% on Friday’s close. In the most recent 10Q the Company stated that Covid-19 pandemic adds a material concern to the financials. I think the stock reflects that with its yield. On March 24th they were rewarded  with a five year 90-100,000 participant contract with U.S. immigration services.  This $2.8 million purchase at $11.31 is the latest in large buys. He bought $1.2 Million on 3/12 at $11.65 and $8.5 million at $16.58 on 2-24-20. The stock … Read more

Insider Buys Week Ending May 1, 2020

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Our pick of the week, EDI Stone Harbor Emerging Market VP bought 100,837 at $5.88 yielding over 15%. Combined with the discount to NAV, the distribution rate for EDI as of May 1 was 27%.  The Stone Harbor Emerging Markets Total Income Fund (EDI) is not for the faint of heart. It’s down 38%YTD and it’s five year return is -5.5%. It’s a managed portfolio of Emerging Markets Debt (sovereign and corporate debt in both hard and local currency) combined with an ability to invest in Emerging Markets Equity, structured to maximize total return. The largest purchase last week was … Read more

A Few Insider Buys and they Pay off Big -Week Ending April 24th

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Director Stephen Luczo continues to buy when others retreat. This time he bought $1.1m of AT&T at $29.38.  When rates are near zero AT&T is paying out 7% dividend yield. He added to his Morgan Stanley bet $734.9K at $38.68. Geoffrey Yang bought 6,754 at $29.39 on 4/24/20. Several insiders participated in a secondary for Darden at $58.5.  DRI closed today at $78.50 Director Gerber bought $3 million of Haliburton at $8.68. HAL closed today at $8.91.  This one takes balls and Gerber has them as he bought $1 million on March 13th at $6.78 Director Plants bought 95,238 Cutera … Read more

Insider Buying has all but Disappeared -for now, Week Ending April 17th

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The tale of the tape is disappointing.  After an initial rash of buying, the insiders have disappeared. The most notable buy of the week was Director Stephen Burke’s massive $6.59 million dollar buy of JP Morgan, increasing his holdings by 50%. JPM responded, soaring almost 10% the following day, dragging the beleaguered sector with it. After the close, Key Corp President reported buying 100,000 shares at $10.36.  I expect KEY to pop Monday morning absent a market sell-off. Williams Sonoma Chairman Bellamy stepped up and bought this home cooking retailer, laying out $485,250 to purchase 9600 shares at $50.55. WSM … Read more