Ebix Shares Jumped: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of e-commerce specialist Ebix (Nasdaq: EBIX  ) bounced as high as 10.6% this morning on dramatically heavy volume.

So what: An SEC filing posted last night showed Neil Eckert making a $495,000 open-market investment in Ebix shares, boosting his holdings by a meaty 28%. Eckert is an Ebix director as well as chairman of the nominating and corporate governance committees, and when a dude with that much insight into the company's workings makes this big a real-money bet, it's a respectable sign that shares may be undervalued.

Now what: Another director and controversial CEO Robin Raina also bought some shares on the open market recently, but their transactions hardly made a difference to their stakes in Ebix. This purchase is a much bigger move. Ebix investors took it on the chin in March when Seeking Alpha contributors called Raina a fraud, but shares have bounced back more than 40% from the lows this purported scandal brought on. We Fools generally think Raina is a standup corporate citizen, and that Ebix deserves a better reputation. Why else would we feature the stock in two different newsletter services and another real-money holding?

Interested in more info about Ebix? Click here to add it to My Watchlist.