Benzinga's Insider Buys Of The Week: Abbott Labs, Hain Celestial, Parsley Energy And More

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors.
• Energy, health care and consumer goods companies saw notable insider buying this past week.
• Insiders took advantage of public offerings and last week's volatility to buy.

Conventional wisdom says insiders and 10 percent owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason -- they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. So insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly during periods of uncertainty.

Here's a look at some notable insider purchases reported in the past week.

Hain Celestial

Hain Celestial Group Inc HAIN had a director acquire more than 1.40 million shares. At a per-share price of about $34.83, the total value of those transactions came to more than $49.02 million. Note that Welling is principal and chief investment officer at Engaged Capital.

The CEO of this maker of organic and natural products recently talked up its focus on e-commerce. The shares are down about 17 percent year to date and ended this past Friday's trading at $34.75 apiece, which is still near the director's purchase price. The stock traded as high as about $42 in the past year.

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Parsley Energy

Parsley Energy Inc PE saw CEO Bryan Sheffield and two other directors together scoop up 201,000 shares of this Austin, Texas-based company at the end of February. At prices ranging from $25.66 to $26.64 a share, those transactions totaled more than $5.30 million. Note that an executive vice president also sold 10,000 shares at about the same time.

Parsley, which includes T. Boone Pickens among its stakeholders, posted better than expected quarterly results earlier in February. Shares closed this past Friday at $25.55 apiece, down marginally from the purchase prices. The stock retreated less than 3 percent in this past week's volatility but is down about 16 percent year to date.

Abbott Labs

An Abbott Laboratories ABT director jumped in to acquire almost 70,000 shares of Illinois-based health care products provider before last week's volatility. At prices that ranged from $60.52 to $60.87 per share, that cost him around $4.25 million. Afterward, a number of other insiders parted with more than 24,000 shares as the stock price dropped.

Jim Cramer preferred Abbot Labs over a leading pharmacy benefit manager this past week. Its shares pulled back about 2 percent in the past week and ended Friday at $59.46, below that director's purchase price range. The stock is up fractionally year to date, however.

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Prospect Capital

Prospect Capital Corporation PSEC CEO John Barry added more than 269,000 additional shares of this business development company at prices that averaged $6.63 apiece, for a total of more than $1.78 million. Note that Barry and the company's chief operating officer have been frequently buying batches of shares since mid-November.

Earlier in February, this New York-based company reported a quarterly profit and declared distributions for February, March and April. At the end of this past week, the share price was $6.56, which is below the most recent insider purchase price. That was also more than 5 percent lower than at the start of this year.

Aimmune

At Aimmune Therapeutics Inc AIMT, the chief financial officer and two directors stepped up to the buy window. The 42,500 shares of this biopharmaceutical company acquired cost them some $1.36 million. Note that these purchases of common stock were in connection with a public offering at the offering price of $32.00 per share.

The Brisbane, California-based company is focused on food allergies, and it announced positive trial results in February. The shares rose more than 12 percent in the past week despite the volatility and closed on Friday at $34.07 apiece. The stock has traded as high as nearly $38 a share in the past 52 weeks.