Insider Buys Of The Week: AT&T, GE, Salesforce

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors.
• Some insiders took advantage of post-earnings slumps this week.
• Also, an insider bucked the selling trend in a hot software stock.

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 with markets near all-time highs.

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

AT&T

Five AT&T Inc. T directors stepped up to the buy window this past week. The total of more than 90,500 shares of this telecom giant acquired, at per-share prices ranging from $30.21 to $30.73, cost them altogether more than $4.56 million. Note that none of these directors owns more than 100,000 shares.

These purchases came just after AT&T shared its latest quarterly results and about the time the stock hit a new 52-week low. Shares ended the week trading at $31.08 apiece, so these directors' purchases seem to be well-timed. The stock has changed hands between $30.13 and $39.80 in the past year, and the analyst's mean price target is $35.99.

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GE

General Electric Company GE saw one of its directors add to his stake last week. At an average price of $13.04 apiece, the 191,000 shares reportedly acquired cost that director about $2.94 million. Note this director is also the CEO of Danaher, and his stake in GE was listed as more than 360,000 shares.

GE saw a post-earnings decline even though it topped Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines. The stock ended last week at $13.06, still near the director's purchase price. It has traded as high as $25.89 in the past year, but the Wall Street consensus price target was last seen at $17.11.

Salesforce

While the CEO, president and other Salesforce.com, inc. CRM executives and insiders were selling throughout July, one director stepped up to the buy window this past week. That director picked up 6,000 shares at between $146.01 and $146.49 apiece. That totaled almost $877,300 and was pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan.

While other big tech stocks suffered last week, Salesforce shares hit a new 52-week high. However, the stock ended the past week at $143.91, down about 3 percent and below the director's purchase price range. The S&P 500 was down only fractionally in that time. The consensus price target for Salesforce is $150.40 a share.