Three Struggling Companies Witnessed Insider Buying In Final Trading Weeks of 2015

GigaMedia Limited (NASDAQ:GIGM) had a very influential insider make purchases in the past two trading weeks. Chief Executive Officer Collin Hwang purchased 173,523 shares during the period between December 18 and December 23 at a weighted average price of $2.98. After the recent purchases, the CEO holds an ownership stake of 636,833 shares, which accounts for 5.76% of the company’s outstanding shares. GigaMedia Limited is a diversified growth company that has online game operations in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and a cloud computing software and services business in Taipei. The company owns online game portal FunTown, which primarily focuses on the high-growth mobile and browser-based casual games market in Asia. GigaMedia also owns a majority interest in developer and publisher of mobile games and apps FingerRockz. It is anticipated that consolidation in the game industry will intensify in the upcoming years, as the mobile gaming market keeps expanding. Thus, every player within this industry may deserve some attention from individual investors and other stock market participants. Meanwhile, the stock is down 33% over the past one-year period and is up by nearly 32% since the company completed a 1-for-5 reverse stock split. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors LLC acquired a 46,705-share stake in GigaMedia Limited (NASDAQ:GIGM) during the September quarter.

Last but not least, Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) had one of its executives purchase shares during the two holiday-shortened trading weeks. Chief Financial Officer and Vice President-Finance Ernest E. Maddock bought a 10,000 share-block on December 24 at $14.32 apiece, boosting his overall stake to 113,256 shares. The memory chip producer has seen its shares decline 59% in 2015, mainly owing to the struggling DRAM market. The company has experienced substantial decreases in average selling prices for its memory products in recent years, and these prices have dropped below manufacturing costs in some periods. Micron’s total net sales for 2015 reached $16.19 billion, down from $16.36 billion reported for 2014. This decrease was mainly attributable to a decrease in DRAM sales, as the weight of declining average selling prices outpaced the increase in gigabit sales volumes. Nevertheless, the company has a relatively cheap valuation at the moment, based on its trailing and forward price-to-earnings ratios. The stock trades at a trailing P/E of 5.76 (the trailing P/E for the S&P 500 totals 22.95) and a forward P/E of 9.48 (the S&P 500’s forward P/E stands at 17.44). A total of 71 smart money investors from our database had stakes in the company at the end of the third quarter, amassing 11.50% of its shares. David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital cut its stake in Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) by 68% during the July-to-September period to 12.37 million shares.

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