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FTSE100 warehouse AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) has been a huge success recently. The company’s share price has fallen by approximately 30% over the past few months.
Is there anything to offer after this recall? Company executives seem to think so. They bought a lot of shares last week.
Why I pay attention to insider buying
I’m alerting you to insider buying activity. Ultimately, no one understands a company and its prospects better than its leaders.
And insiders buy company shares for one reason only – to make money. They are not going to invest their hard-earned money in a company’s stock if they think the stock price is falling.
Of course, not every insider purchase is a valuable investment signal. Some transactions carry more weight than others. What I’m looking for is gigantic purchases With top class insiders. Research shows that these are usually the most material materials.
I also like to see many insiders buy shares at the same time. This pattern, known as “cluster buying,” can be a very powerful signal.
Large purchases at AstraZeneca
Looking at the purchasing director at AstraZeneca, this activity seems very intriguing to me. On November 13, director Philip Broadley (who had extensive financial experience) bought 980 shares at a price of £101.70 per share. This transaction was worth less than PLN 100,000. pounds.
Then on November 14, CEO Pascal Soriot (who has been CEO since 2012) bought 20,000 shares at a price of £102.03. The value of this transaction was as much as £2.04 million.
Finally, on November 15, CEO Michel Demare (who also has a financial background) bought 2,000 shares at a price of £100.30. This value was approximately PLN 200,000. pounds.
Overall, the three insiders bought around £2.3m worth of shares, which is significant.
I buy dip
Now I take a look at why AstraZeneca’s share price fell earlier this month. In tiny, much depended on the problems in China, where some company executives are under investigation for fraud.
However, it seems that those in the know here aren’t too concerned about this issue. Otherwise they wouldn’t be buying shares now.
New threats
However, another risk has emerged in recent days. And it is possible to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
RFK is not a gigantic fan of vaccines, the area of healthcare in which AstraZeneca specializes. So there may be some consequences for AstraZeneca (and its competitor GSK) if he gets the gig (maybe not).
Given that the expansive majority of health experts believe in vaccines, I would be surprised if he tried to block or ban them. So I’m not too concerned about that risk right now.
Is it worth buying?
In terms of valuation, AstraZeneca shares are currently trading at a forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 13.4. All things considered, I think this is an attractive result for the pharmaceutical giant.
At this valuation, I believe this stock is worth considering (especially after a purchase by a huge executive). A dividend yield of 2.6% adds weight to the investment case.