Last Week's Notable Insider Buys: Carnival, Citigroup And More

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors when markets face uncertainty.
• More initial public offerings encouraged insiders to buy shares last week.
• Insiders also have bought into a big bank, an asset manager and a cruise operator.

Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10% 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 when markets are near all-time highs.

Insiders continued to add shares despite market volatility and economic uncertainty. Here are some of the most noteworthy insider purchases reported in the past week.

Biotechnology company Shattuck Labs Inc STTK saw beneficial owner Redmile Group step up to the buy window after the initial public offering. At $17.00 to $22.10 per share, the more than 3.44 million shares totaled nearly $59.66 million. Shares closed Friday's trading at $20.00, down from a post-IPO high of $22.90 seen on the first day of trading.

Last week, a Brookfield Asset Management Inc BAM director added almost 2.13 million shares at $15.00 apiece. That totaled more than $31.94 million and brought the stake to over 17.45 million shares. Note that this director also purchased around 21,000 shares of this Toronto-based alternative asset manager back in early September.

Kronos Bio Inc KRON had CEO Norbert Bischofberger and some other executives and directors take advantage of the initial public offering to buy more than 639,600 shares altogether at $19.00 apiece. Those transactions totaled more than $12.15 million. Bischofberger's 95,500 shares were acquired via trust, and the stock ended last week at $32.06 per share.

The executive board chair at Fubotv Inc FUBO, Edgar Miles Bronfman Jr., indirectly purchased 200,000 shares of TV streaming platform for the public offering price of $10.00 apiece. Another director also added 200,000 shares last week. That cost them $4.00 million altogether. The share price rose nearly 19% in the past week to close at $12.01 on Friday.

The chief financial officer, another executive and a director added a combined 102,000 or so Gossamer Bio Inc GOSS shares to their stakes last week. Prices ranged from $9.41 to $10.55 per share, and the purchases (via family trusts) cost them more than $1.05 million. Shares closed most recently at $9.68, after the San Diego-based biotech announced a license agreement.

See also: Insider Sells Best Buy Stock

Aerospace and defense company Heico Corp HEI saw eight executives and three directors receive 978 shares apiece in accordance with a Leadership Compensation Plan (409A Plan). At about $111.44 apiece, that was worth more than $871,900. Note that a different executive sold more than $2.32 million worth of shares last week. The stock was last seen trading at $112.70 a share.

A Citigroup Inc C director purchased via trust 10,000 shares of this financial services giant last week. At share prices of $44.02 to $44.10, that came to over $440,800 and more than doubled his stake. Note that another director sold fewer than 500 shares last week. The stock fell almost 4% last week to $43.19 a share, despite the company posting solid quarterly results.

A director at Carnival Corp CCL picked up 10,000 shares via trust after the Miami-based cruise line operator canceled more cruises due the extended CDC no-sail order. At around $14.05 per share, that came to nearly $140,500. His stake was listed as shy of 23,800 shares. The stock ended the week at $14.08 per share, just above the purchase price.

In addition, some smaller amount of insider buying in Enerpac Tool Group Corp EPAC, Golub Capital BDC Inc GDBC, Old Republic International Corporation ORI, Texas Pacific Land Trust TPL and York Water Co YORW was reported last week as well.