Notable Insider Buys This Past Week: Carnival, Worthington

Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors.

A director picked up shares of a cruise line operator in the past week.

A director at a steel company bucked a selling trend after earnings.

Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10% owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason: they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit. So insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly with markets near all-time highs.

The following are a few notable insider purchases reported in the past week.

Carnival

Carnival Corp CCL saw one of its directors purchase shares recently. At $46.50 apiece, the 20,000 shares acquired totaled $930,000. Note that the company's chief executive officer bought more than 22,000 shares via trust in the final week of June as well.

Barron's recently made a case for Carnival as a bargain stock. The shares ended the first week of July essentially flat, while the S&P 500 was fractionally higher. The stock closed most recently at $46.91, above the director's purchase price. Note that shares have traded as high as $67.69 in the past 52 weeks, but the consensus analyst price target is $56.06.

Worthington

The Worthington Industries, Inc. WOR lead director recently stepped up and purchased 25,000 shares of this Ohio-based steel company. At prices of near $40 per share, that cost him almost $1 million.

Note that another director and an executive have sold 6,000 shares altogether this past week, for more than $40 apiece.

The above transactions occurred after Worthington posted mixed quarterly results and expanded the size of its board to 11 directors.

The stock ended the past week at $40.10 per share, after retreating about 2% for the holiday-shortened week. While the consensus target was last seen at just $38, the stock has traded as high as $48.57 in the past 52 weeks.

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At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.

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