General Electric, Tyco And Others Insiders Have Been Buying

With the markets still near all-time highs but facing various headwinds, investors have had to get more selective when it comes to picking stocks. Insider buying can be an encouraging signal. Conventional wisdom says that insiders and beneficial owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason -- they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. Recently, the most significant insider buys have been of the likes of General Electric, Opko Health and Tyco International.

Completing a more than month-long binge, one director bought more than 9,700

shares in the past two weeks at prices ranging from $47.89 to $47.99. That came to more $486,000. The total for the entire month of April was around $19.0 million. This Georgia-based agricultural equipment maker has a market capitalization near $4.5 billion and a dividend yield of about 1.0 percent. The price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is less than larger peers Caterpillar or Deere, but more than 19 percent of its float is short. Shares ended Tuesday at $51.07, so the buys look well-timed.

After

posted a positive earnings surprise, the chairman and CEO bought more than 20,000 shares at $145.68 apiece, or a total of more than $2.91 million. Revenues for the quarter fell short of estimates though, due in part to currency issues. This hydrogen and helium provider's market cap is around $31.1 billion, and it has a dividend yield near 2.1 percent. The long-term earnings per share (EPS) growth forecast is about 12 percent. The stock closed Tuesday at $145.41, down about 3 percent in the past 90 days, while the S&P is up about 2 percent.

As the European Commission expresses concerns about a

buyout of Alstom, two GE directors bought a combined 43,500 shares last week. At prices ranging from $27.22 to $27.26 per share, that came to more than $1.18 million. This $271.0 billion market cap conglomerate has a long-term EPS growth forecast of about 9 percent and a dividend yield of about 3.7 percent. On Tuesday, shares closed at $26.92. The stock is up more than 6 percent since the beginning of the year, much of that gain coming in early April.

The chairman continues to buy batches of shares frequently, as he has done for well more than a year. He purchased around 77,500

shares in the past week at prices that ranged from $13.95 to $14.47. That cost him more than $1.17 million. His total stake is around 154.71 million shares. This Miami-based health care company has a market cap of near $6.3 billion. Note that the return on equity is in the red, and short interest is about 17 percent of the float. Shares ended the trading session Tuesday at $13.88, but they have traded mostly between $14 and $15 since early February.

Beneficial owner Biotech Growth accumulated 200,000 shares of this Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical company recently. At a share prices ranging from $36.23 to $38.38, that was worth almost $7.39 million. Biotech Growth is a subsidiary of Swiss investment company BB Biotech. The market cap of

is around $1.4 billion, and it develops therapeutics for patients with osteoporosis and other serious endocrine-mediated diseases. The share price has retreated more than 26 percent in the past 90 days and closed Tuesday $36.04.

Last week, a director purchased 10,000 shares of

at $39.95 apiece. That cost him almost $400,000. The transaction followed an

. This Ireland-based security and safety products and services company has a dividend yield of about 1.9 percent and a market cap near $16.6 billion. The return on equity is more than 35 percent. Shares were changing hands at $39.50 on Tuesday's close, but they are down about 10 percent year to date.

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