Insider Buys Of The Week: DDR, Salesforce, Lexicon Pharma

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors.
• On insider continued to raise a stake in the wake of a reverse stock split.
• Also, an insider bucked the selling trend in a hot software stock.

Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10 percent 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. So insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly during periods of uncertainty.

Here's a look at some notable insider purchases reported in the past week.

DDR

A DDR Corp DDR director added to his stake again. At prices that ranged from $17.02 to $18.00, the total of almost 1.19 million shares reportedly acquired in the past week cost that director more than $20.84 million. Note that this director also bought a lot of shares in May.

This real estate investment trust had a 2-for-1 reverse stock split back in May and will soon be spinning off some assets into a separate company. The stock climbed less than 4 percent last week, ending Friday at $18.00 apiece, the top of the director's purchase price range. Shares traded as high as $21.74 (split adjusted) in the past year, but the consensus price target is just $16.41.

See Also: Musk Raises His Stake In Tesla

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals

At Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. LXRX, 10 percent owner Invus Public Equities purchased more than 105.900 shares of this biopharmaceutical company last week. The share prices for these purchases ranged from $12.95 to $13.52, and the total for the transactions came to almost $1.45 million. The total stake was listed as about 3.08 million shares, while total shares outstanding numbered more than 105 million.

Lexicon announced positive trial results for a diabetes treatment, but that was after the purchases mentioned above. Shares rose more than 3 percent last week and ended most recently at $13.58. And note the stock has traded as high as $18.00 in the past 52 weeks, but the mean price target is up at $23.00.

Salesforce

While the CEO, president and other salesforce.com, inc. CRM executives and insiders were selling throughout June, one director stepped up to the buy window this past week. That director picked up 6,000 shares at between $137.96 and $138.24 apiece. That totaled more than $791,900 and was pursuant to a 10b5-1 plan.

Salesforce shares ended the past week at $135.01, down more than 2 percent and below the director's purchase price range. The S&P 500 was down only fractionally in that time. The consensus price target is $148.54.