It's time once again to check out the week's most interesting insider purchases. After reading through numerous filings using insider tracking tool Form 4 Oracle, here are my top five today.
The week's buying
Company |
Closing Price 6/3/08 |
Total Value Purchased |
52-Week Change |
---|---|---|---|
Checkpoint Systems |
$26.22 |
$202,960 |
0% |
Chesapeake Energy |
$55.30 |
$21,983,059 |
53.7% |
General Electric |
$30.46 |
$3,519,816 |
(16.9%) |
Valeant Pharmaceuticals |
$15.82 |
$868,330 |
(1.4%) |
Virtual Radiologic |
$10.29 |
$76,655 |
NA* |
Sources: Fool.com, Yahoo! Finance, Form 4 Oracle, SEC filings. NA = not applicable.
*Virtual Radiologic began trading on Dec. 3, 2007.
This general won't surrender
When Foolish colleague Rick Munarriz recently wrote that General Electric would never again be great, many disagreed. Certainly, the vast majority of Fools rating GE in our 105,000-strong Motley Fool CAPS community feel otherwise:
Metric |
|
---|---|
CAPS stars (5 max) |
**** |
Total ratings |
8,054 |
Bullish ratings |
7,481 |
Percent Bulls |
92.9% |
Bearish ratings |
573 |
Percent Bears |
7.1% |
Bullish pitches |
1,317 |
Bearish pitches |
106 |
Data current as of June 4, 2008.
I understand their reasoning. GE has:
- An enduring and well-respected brand.
- A sturdy balance sheet that sports $15.3 billion in cash and investments.
- A history of producing tens of billions in annual free cash flow.
And perhaps best of all, it has a Foolish CEO who has millions to gain (or lose) in boldly positioning the business for growth. That's Jeff Immelt. Already the owner of more than 1.5 million shares of GE, Immelt is back on a buying spree, with a $3.5 million purchase last week.
But that's affordable for Immelt, whose holdings return $1.9 million annually in dividends. Yes, I said $1.9 million; that's what a 4% yield will do for you. Such dividends can set you for life.
And for Fools, the dividend makes all the difference with GE, as CAPS All-Star CarltonWhitfield explained in his April pitch:
Nearly a 4% yield here after a 7 cent earnings miss. ... International business booming. Still a significant backlog for all things green in the industrial space. Potential for asset write-ups on the financial side in the future. This may take a bit to move but we get paid to wait with the dividend.
Checking in on Chesapeake
I've spilled more than enough digital ink in this series about Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, so I'll not rehash his buying prowess.
What I find interesting is that he's accelerating his buys as the stock price rises. See for yourself:
Time Period |
Shares |
Total Purchase |
Avg. Price |
---|---|---|---|
May 2007 |
100,000 |
$3,420,890 |
$34.21 |
January 2008 |
536,500 |
$19,423,051 |
$36.20 |
March 2008 |
500,000 |
$23,103,107 |
$46.20 |
May 2008 |
1,000,000 |
$53,648,538 |
$53.65 |
Source: Form 4 Oracle.
Do the math with me. In May, McClendon increased his buying tenfold at an average price nearly 57% higher than last year. Either he's crazy or has good reason to like Chesapeake at these prices. History strongly favors the latter.
There's your update. See you back here next week, when we dig through more insider filings in search of the next home run stock.
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