What happened
Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) were climbing this week, up 9.4% as of Thursday's close, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The catalyst was insider buying coming after last week's earnings report.
Shares jumped 9.3% on Thursday, following a 5.4% gain on Wednesday after filings showed that several executives bought the stock.
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So what
Insider buying is almost always a signal that the people who know the company best expect the stock to go up.
Filings Tuesday night revealed that four different executives bought Bed Bath & Beyond stock. CFO Gustavo Arnal bought 15,000 shares; Chief Merchandising Officer Joseph Hartsig bought 5,000 shares; Chief Customer Officer Rafeh Masood bought 7,000 shares, and director Joshua Schechter bought 6,000 shares. On Thursday night, the company also reported that Chief Stores Officer Gregg Melnick bought 7,000 shares.
Such a wave of insider buying doesn't seem like a coincidence, and those purchases indicate that the execs think the stock has a lot of room to run after its earnings report last week.
However, for the three months ended Nov. 27, Bed Bath & Beyond reported a sharp decline in sales, blaming supply chain issues. Overall revenue was down 28%, and revenue from continuing operations slipped 14% with comparable sales down 7%.
The company also reported a per-share loss of $0.25, compared to a profit of $0.08 per share in the same quarter a year ago. Guidance was also not inspiring, as the company called for another comparable sales decline in the current quarter, and for a full-year loss on the bottom line.
Now what
Given the weak results, the rush of insider buying is a bit surprising. CEO Mark Tritton had said that demand was strong in the quarter, and the execs seem to be bullish on the ongoing turnaround. However, the boom the retail stock enjoyed from the spike in home goods demand in the early part of the pandemic seems to be fading now.
