Last Week's Notable Insider Buys Included Evergy, Frontier Communications And More

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, especially when markets are uncertain.


• The week's most notable insider buys were at an REIT, a telecommunications company, a biotech and a utility.


• Owners with more than a 10% stake have been bolstering those stakes.

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 there is uncertainty in the markets or the markets are near all-time highs.

Note that with a new earnings-reporting season coming up, the windows will close for insiders to buy or sell shares. Here are a few of the most noteworthy insider purchases that were reported in the past week.

A 10% owner of Safehold Inc SAFE stepped up to the buy window last week to acquire more than 712,500 shares of this real estate investment trust. At share prices ranging from $72.78 to $76.00, that cost that owner nearly $54 million and raised the stake to over 35.9 million shares. Safehold has more than 53 million shares outstanding. The stock ended last week trading at $72.68 a share, just below the owner's purchase price range.

Frontier Communications Parent Inc FYBR saw a beneficial owner indirectly buy more than 424,100 shares recently. That added up to more than $11.43 million, at a per-share price of $26.95. The stock has traded as high as $33.34 since the company reinvented itself back in May, but was last seen trading $28.22 per share. That is almost 5% higher than the owner's purchase price.

The purchase of more than 86,900 Kodiak Sciences Inc KOD shares by a 10% owner at prices ranging from $95.15 to $95.98 apiece totaled to more than $8.33 million. The owner also exercised an option to acquire about 150,000 shares, and the stake was lifted to more than 13.5 million. Over 51 million of the company's shares are outstanding. The stock ended the week at $97 per share.

Last week, an Evergy Inc EVRG director indirectly purchased more than 39,600 additional shares of the Kansas City-based producer of electricity. At $62.40 to $63.52 apiece, the cost for those shares totaled almost $2.5 million. Note that this director also picked up about $2.5 million worth of shares in the previous week. However, the stock ended last week at $61.80 per share, below the latest purchase price range.

See also: 4 Stocks Insiders Are Selling

Some other sizable insider purchases reported last week:

• Sensient Technologies Corporation SXT beneficial owner buys almost 80,400 shares for more than $7.4 million.


• MacroGenics Inc MGNX beneficial owner buys 200,000 shares for around $2.1 million.


• Apartment Investment and Management Co AIV director buys almost 305,400 shares for more than $2.1 million.


• Agree Realty Corporation ADC executive chair and another director buy almost 26,300 shares for more than $1.7 million.


• Gulfport Energy Corp GPOR beneficial owner buys 22,000 shares for more than $1.7 million.


• Black Knight Inc BKI chief executive buys 14,000 shares for more than $963,000.

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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