Insiders Have Bought Express Scripts, Simon, and More

A filing with the SEC reported that one member of M&T Bank Corporation (NYSE:MTB)’s Board of Directors acquired 1,250 shares on March 12^th for $104.17 per share. At a market capitalization of $13 billion, M&T Bank trades at 14 times trailing earnings; this represents a premium to some larger megabanks, but M&T’s beta is significantly below 1 (which should indicate more resistance to macro factors) and earnings were up by 20% in 2012 from their levels a year earlier. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway had 5.4 million shares in its portfolio at the end of December (check out Buffett’s stock picks).

Tom Leighton, the CEO of Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), bought 30,000 shares at an average price of $34.75 per share. Akamai is a $6.2 billion market cap cloud computing services company. Last quarter the company experienced a 17% increase in revenue compared to the fourth quarter of 2011, and though margins slipped a bit net income was still up 14%. The trailing P/E is 31, so apparently Leighton is counting on high growth. Tiger Cub Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management owned 3.3 million shares of Akamai at the end of December (see Laffont’s favorite stocks).

A Board member at Vitamin Shoppe Inc (NYSE:VSI), a $1.6 billion market cap retailer of nutritional products, purchased 2,000 shares on March 12^th at $50.82 per share. Despite what some would call an attractive industry, Vitamin Shoppe’s top and bottom lines grew by less than 4% in its most recent quarter compared to the same period in the previous year. Given the trailing P/E of 26, that’s a fairly disappointing performance. 16% of the outstanding shares are held short. While we wouldn’t think it wise to short a stock seeing insider buying, we certainly think that Vitamin Shoppe is too expensive  for a value investment right now.

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.