Monday 2/3 Insider Buying Report: CSFL, PFE (Nasdaq.com)
Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned dollars to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys. At CenterState Bank Corp (CSFL), a filing with the SEC revealed that on Friday, Chief Financial Officer William E. V. Matthews bought 5,000 shares of CSFL, for a cost of $22.89 each, for a total investment of $114,443. CenterState Bank Corp is trading up about 1.9% on the day Monday. And on Thursday, Director Scott Gottlieb purchased $36,997 worth of Pfizer (PFE), purchasing 1,000 shares at a cost of $37.00 each. Before this latest buy, Gottlieb made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $104,160 shares for a cost of $34.72 each. Pfizer is trading up about 1.4% on the day Monday. So far Gottlieb is in the green, up about 2.3% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $37.84.
What Did This CEO Just Do with Personal Shares of Blackrock (NYSE: BLK)? (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the Chairman & CEO of Blackrock (BLK), Laurence Fink, sold shares of BLK for $25.08M. Following Laurence Fink’s last BLK Sell transaction on October 25, 2019, the stock climbed by 70.7%. In addition to Laurence Fink, 2 other BLK executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
Notable Insider Buys Last Week: Anthem, Discover Financial (Benzinga)
Anthem: Anthem Inc (ANTM) 0.31% CEO Gail Boudreaux purchased 7,600 shares of this health benefits giant last week. At $262.93 to $264.36 per share, that totaled more than $2 million. Note that some shares were acquired via a dividend reinvestment plan, and Boudreaux’s stake is now listed as over 26,500 shares. Discover Financial Services: Discover Financial Services (DFS) 1.41% saw chief executive Roger Hochschild add to his stake. He picked up 15,000 shares of this payment services company at between $74.05 and $74.20 each. Three other executives bought 3,000 or more shares each as well. The total for these transactions came to more than $1.83 million. Hochschild had nearly 850,000 shares on last look.
Stern Alumnus Sentenced for Insider Trading – With Minimal Consequences (NYUNews.com)
Stern alumnus Bill Tsai will spend 90 days in a community reentry center, be placed under five-year probation, fined $100 and forfeit his illicit earnings, according to court documents. Bill Tsai was arrested one year after graduating from Stern for illegally earning $100,000 off the stock market, using knowledge he acquired through his junior analyst position at RBC Capital Markets. Tsai learned of Sirius Capital Group’s plan to buy a digital printing company – Electronics for Imaging – and bought call options in EFI before the purchase raised the company’s stocks’ value from $29.40 to $38, allowing Tsai to turn a profit.
WeissLaw LLP: Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is the Subject of a Legal Investigation (Benzinga.com)
NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — WeissLaw LLP, a national class action and shareholders’ rights law firm with offices in New York, California and Georgia, announces an investigation of Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLA) (“Portola,” or the “Company”). The investigation focuses on possible breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of federal securities laws by the members of Portola’s Board of Directors in connection the with the Company’s flagship drug Andexxa. Notably, Portola recently announced that in the fourth quarter of 2019 Andexxa sales tumbled to $28 million and, as a result, it anticipated full year revenue of only $111 million. These figures represent a significant departure from the projections of $41 million in Andexxa sales in the fourth quarter and $132 million in full year revenue. On this news, the Company’s share price nosedived as much 45.4%.
