Moving on to the next company that had strong insider buying activity yesterday, Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE:ADC), an integrated real estate investment trust (REIT), which saw two different insiders buy shares. William S. Rubenfaer, an Independent Director at Agree Realty, bought 4,000 shares through two transactions at average prices of $28.86 and $28.87 per transaction. Following the transactions, the insider currently owns 14,000 shares. Richard Agree, Executive Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors, made three purchases of 5,000 shares at prices ranging from $28.48 to $29.01, boosting his stake to 431,358 shares. The REIT recently announced its financial results for the second quarter, posting total rental revenue of $16.11 million, up by 35% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the company’s net income came in at $10.26 million or $0.59 per share, compared to $2.65 million or $0.18 per share reported in the same quarter a year ago. Despite delivering a seemingly strong financial performance, the shares of the REIT have dropped by almost 9% since the beginning of the year, which might stand behind the corporate insiders’ purchases. Israel Englander’s Millennium Management is one of the largest shareholders of Agree Realty Corporation (NYSE:ADC) within our database, holding a 170,989 share-stake at the end of June.
We can now turn our full attention to Morningstar Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN), which registered a high volume of insider selling yesterday. Bevin Desmond, who is the President of International Operations and Global Human Resources for Morningstar, sold 5,000 shares through three transactions on August 24, at an average price of $78.29, trimming her stake to 29,375 shares. Bevin Desmond has sold even more shares over the last few weeks, which might suggest that the price level of over $85 is short-lived for the stock. The shares of Morningstar are up by 22.38% year-to-date, partly thanks to the company’s strong financial performance of late. Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research, reported net operating income of $49.7 million for the second quarter, compared to a net operating loss of $24.8 million posted a year ago. The company recently announced its plans to launch the industry’s first environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores for global mutual and exchange-traded funds by the end of the year. It’s worth mentioning that Julius Baer, a Swiss private banking firm, will be the first to license the ESG scores. From the massive pool of hedge funds and other investors that we track, Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates represents the largest equity holder in Morningstar Inc. (NASDAQ:MORN), owning 1.59 million shares.
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