The Past Week's Notable Insider Buys Included Asana, Designer Brands, Evergy And More

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


• The week's most notable insider purchases were made by returning buyers.


• A chief executive officer and an executive board chair were among the notable insiders adding to their 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 about to start, the windows for insiders to buy or sell shares are closing. Here are a few of the most noteworthy insider purchases that were reported in the past week.

CEO Dustin Moskovitz of Asana Inc ASAN returned to the buy window last week to acquire more than 253,800 additional shares of this San Francisco-based tech company. At share prices ranging from $98.67 to $100.00, that cost him over $25.38 million. Moskovitz bought 250,000 shares in the prior week and more than 760,000 in September. The stock ended last week trading at $105.45 a share, more than 5% above the top of the latest purchase price range.

Sensient Technologies Corporation SXT saw a beneficial owner continue a buying streak stretching back to late August. The more than 61,700 shares picked up most recently added up to more than $5.7 million, at per-share prices of $91.04 to $94.46. The owner's stake in the food and cosmetics ingredient maker is up to more than 5 million shares, which compares to around 42 million shares outstanding. The stock was last seen trading at $89.16 per share.

Last week, an Evergy Inc EVRG director indirectly purchased around 60,000 additional shares of Kansas City-based producer of electricity. At $61.64 to $63.48 apiece, the cost for those shares totaled about $2.77 million. Note that this director also picked up almost $5 million worth of shares in the previous week. However, the stock ended last week at $62.01 per share, near the bottom of the latest purchase price range.

The purchase of more than 197,000 Designer Brands Inc DBI shares by Jay Schottenstein, executive board chair, at prices ranging from $13.87 to $14.00 apiece totaled more than $2.75 million. His stake of more than 1.8 million shares also makes him a 10% owner. Note that other executives sold 100,000 shares recently. The footwear company's stock ended the week at $13.72 per share, below the above purchase price range.

See also: 4 Stocks Insiders Are Selling

Some other sizable insider purchases reported last week:

• Spero Therapeutics Inc SPRO beneficial owner buys more than 134,500 shares for more than $2.5 million.


• Cheniere Energy Partners LP CQP beneficial owner buys more than 44,500 shares for more than $1.8 million.


• Analog Devices, Inc. ADI director buys about 8,000 shares for over $1.3 million.


• CIM Commercial Trust Corp CMCT three directors buy almost 79,800 shares for around $710,000.


• MaxLinear, Inc. MXL executive buys around 10,400 shares for more than $499,700.

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

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