Insiders Have Bought Continental, Marsh & McLennan, and More

AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO) had a company with ties to a Board member buy additional shares in late March. The same company had been a buyer in November and December of 2012. (see a history of insider purchases at AGCO). At a market capitalization of $5 billion, the agricultural equipment company trades at 10 times trailing earnings (much in line with other machinery companies, including those specializing in agricultural machinery). Wall Street analysts are optimistic about the business, resulting in a forward P/E of 9 and a five-year PEG ratio of 0.8.

Real estate investment trust Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE:ADC), which is focused on retail properties, had a Board member buy close to 11,000 shares of the stock at prices of around $28. Real estate investment trusts receive favorable tax status conditional on distributing a large share of their taxable income to shareholders. This often results in high dividend yields, and Agree in fact pays a yield of nearly 6%- considerably higher than other retail REITs such as Simon Property Group, Inc (NYSE:SPG). We would note that Agree is considerably smaller at a market cap of about $320 million (daily dollar volume is well over $1 million).

Another smaller-cap real estate investment trust, Gramercy Capital Corp. (NYSE:GKK), was also seeing insider buying as the company’s CEO purchased 50,000 shares. Even though the market capitalization is only about $290 million over 600,000 shares of Gramercy are traded per day, and the current price is about $4.80 per share. The company invests in office buildings and mortgage-backed securities. Gramercy has not paid a dividend since 2008; even after a 73% rise in the last year, the stock is still down over 75% from its levels five years ago as the financial crisis hit the company hard.

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