A Six-Pack of Stocks With Promising Insider Trading Activity

Insider trading activity: Insider buying activity is important to pay attention to, despite what most analysts may think. Multiple empirical studies suggest that it is possible to beat the market by paying attention to companies with more than one insider purchase over a recent period of time. While the exact criteria vary, it’s generally thought that two insider buys in a three-month period is reason to be partially bullish, and three or more an even better indicator to consider buying in.

Over the past week, we’ve covered a ton of insider trading activity, but let’s take a look at some of the most promising situations that you should keep on your radar.

Two directors at COMMUNITYONE BANCORP (NASDAQ:COB) bought shares of the company in the first two days of the week. Austin A. Adams purchased 255 shares at $7.35 each, and John Bresnan bought in two separate times at trading prices of $7.35 and $8.17 a pop. The small-cap banking company recently saw an important U.S. District Court case dismissed late last month, and shares are up 17.6% over the past three months. CommunityOne currently trades near $9.94 a share.

The recently-IPOed Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corp (NYSE:CHMI) saw CIO Jay Lown snatch up about $75,000 worth of the stock, and CFO Martin Levine built a $103K position. These trades are particularly interesting because Ken Griffin and Citadel hold about 5% of the company, and Daniel Lewis’ Orange Capital owns 7.3%.

Beleaguered SANUWAVE Health, Inc. (OTCBB:SNWV) saw its CEO, CFO and a board member buy stock this week. Read about those transactions here.

Perhaps the biggest move of the week was made by BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) co-founder Michael Lazaridis, who upped his stake in the smartphone maker to 8%, and together with Douglas Fregin, expressed his interest to take the company private. It’s worth noting that Lazaridis and Fregin are not reported to be connected with Prem Watsa‘s buyout bid for BlackBerry.

Two EOG Resources Inc (NYSE:EOG) insiders bought stock at $174.59 a piece. It now trades near $179.91.

Lastly, a couple AmREIT Inc (NYSE:AMRE) insiders bought some shares. The transactions were made by Director Brent Longnecker  and Chad Braun, the company’s COO, CFO, Secretary and Treasurer.

Disclosure: none