Insider Buying Roundup: Elon Musk Buys Tesla (TSLA) Shares After Earnings Call Backlash

Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP)

Who Bought Shares: EVP & CFO Stanley Berman

How Many Shares Were Bought: 3,728 @ $134.12 per share

Date of the Transaction(s): May 2

This transaction represented the first insider purchase at Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) in over a year-and-a-half and comes amid a turbulent time for the company and its shareholders. Those shares have lost over 20% of their value this year, which has prompted shareholder backlash over the company’s generous executive compensation plan amid declining results.

A nonbinding shareholder vote held during the company’s annual shareholder meeting in late-April resulted in 75% of votes going against its 2017 executive compensation, a year in which CEO James Cracchiolo enjoyed realized pay of over $60 million. That represented a massive shift from past votes, which passed with over 80% support in each of the previous four years.

Also last month, former Ameriprise financial advisor Li Lin Hsu was arrested on fraud charges after she allegedly bilked investors out of $2 million over a five-year period which began while she was still being employed by the company (she was terminated in 2015).

Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY)

Who Bought Shares: CEO Herve Hoppenot

How Many Shares Were Bought: 15,000 @ $60.94 per share

Date of the Transaction(s): May 2

We come lastly to Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY), a biopharmaceutical company whose shares have tumbled by 38% in 2018. The latest blow to the stock came last week when the company’s first-quarter earnings and revenue both missed analysts’ estimates. That prompted CEO Herve Hoppenot to buy 15,000 shares in the middle of last week, raising his position to 276,690 shares.

More important than the missed earnings results was the company’s failed drug trial of epacadostat in combination with Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK)‘s Keytruda, for the treatment of melanoma. Those results were announced in early-April and sent Incyte’s shares crashing by 23%. The early results of epacadostat in combination with other treatments had fueled a huge push for Incyte’s stock in late-2016/early-2017, as analysts had projected that the drug could pull in $3 billion annually by 2022. While other combinations could still prove effective, the failed combination was seen as one of the strongest, which doesn’t bode well for the results from other combination trials involving epacadostat, of which there are over two dozen.

Disclosure: None