Why Are Insiders Bullish On These 3 Companies?

An extremely high volume of insider buying has been registered at Kronos Worldwide Inc. (NYSE:KRO) over the past several weeks. Chairman Steven L. Watson has purchased 86,095 shares since January 11 at prices that ranged from $4.10 per share to $4.65 per share, boosting his overall stake to 627,747 shares. The Chairman purchased an additional 50,000 shares in 2016 (before January 11) at prices that fell between $4.79 and $5.00 per share. The global producer and marketer of value-added titanium dioxide pigments (TiO₂) has seen its shares decline by 61% since the end of January 2015. TiO₂ is mainly used for manufacturing applications, which include paints, plastics, and paper, to name just a few.

The company’s financial performance has been impacted by increased competition, which put significant pressure on Kronos’ average selling prices throughout 2014 and the first nine months of 2015. Kronos reported net sales of $1.06 billion for the nine months that ended September 30, down from $1.28 billion reported a year earlier. Moving back to the depressed prices, the average selling prices at the end of the third quarter of 2015 were 3% lower relative to the prices registered at the end of the previous quarter and 13% lower than prices at the end of 2014. The company kicked off a restructuring plan during the second quarter of 2015 to enhance its cost structure, mainly via workforce cuts, in anticipation of this. A mere six hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were invested in the company at the end of the third quarter, with them amassing just 0.30% of its shares. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors LLC owns 161,061 shares of Kronos Worldwide Inc. (NYSE:KRO) as of September 30.

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