Notable Insider Buys In The Past Week: McDonald's, MGM And More

Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors.

A new chief executive officer at a Dow Jones industrial purchased shares this week.

An executive continued with a recent buying streak as well.

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.

MGM

An MGM Resorts International MGM director stepped up to the buy window this past week. That director indirectly picked up 79,000 shares of this Las Vegas-based company at $29.02 to $29.66 each. This transaction totaled more than $2.32 million and brought the director's stake to more than 20.6 million shares.

Hopes for a trade deal with China helped buoy the shares this past week. The stock closed most recently at $31.41 a share, above the top of the director's purchase price range, and up over 7% last week. The shares hit a 52-week high of $31.68 back in July, but analysts now anticipate the share price will go to $33.75.

Assured Guaranty

Assured Guaranty Ltd. AGO saw its chief investment officer add another 36,700 or so shares in the past week. At prices ranging from $47.26 to $48.51 a share, that totaled more than $1.75 million. Note that this executive has been buying shares since the beginning of October and the stake is up to almost 292,500 shares.

This Bermuda-based credit protection products provider posted mixed third-quarter results last week. It shares were trading at $48.23 each on last look, within the above purchase price range. The stock rose to a new 52-week high of $49.86 per share on Friday, and the consensus price target is at $55.25.

McDonald's

New Mcdonald's Corp MCD CEO Chris Kempczinski scooped up more than 2,500 shares of this fast-food giant last week, and a director also bought 1,300 shares. At prices ranging from $193.46 to $193.81, that cost them more than $751,000 altogether.

Former CEO Steve Easterbrook was ousted recently on news of an inappropriate relationship. McDonald's stock was last seen trading at $193.61 a share, after rising more than 2% last week. The 52-week trading range is $169.04 to $221.93, and the analysts' consensus recommendation remains to buy the shares.

See also: 8 S&P 500 Stocks With The Most Insider Buying

Note that some insider buying was seen at Cadence Bancorp CADE, Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. LYV and Virtu Financial Inc VIRT last week as well.

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

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