Carmine Di Sibio, a director at Prudential Financial (PRU), recently bought 200 shares. The buy is a new position for the director, and came to a total cost of $22,208.
This marks the first insider buy since last June, when a company EVP bought 365 shares, paying $42,364, to increase her stake by 2%. Overall, company insiders have been regular sellers over the past two years, with a handful of those sales coming following the exercise of stock options.
Overall, Prudential Financial insiders own 0.2% of shares.
The financial services giant has traded flat over the past year, underperforming the overall stock market. Operationally, Prudential struggled, with revenues declining by 17%, and as earnings growth was negative.
Even though shares performed better than Prudential’s operations, shares trade inexpensively at 8 times forward earnings. Plus, shares trade at 0.6 times their price-to-sales. If Prudential can improve its services and boost its profit margin from its current levels near 4%, shares could be a winner in the financial sector.
Action to take: Prudential shares may be in the midst of an oversold rally from here, having recently started to bounce off its 52-week low. Today’s buyers can likely see low-double-digit gains in the coming months, and pick up a 4.8% dividend.
For traders, with shares bouncing higher, the September $125 calls, last trading for about $3.30, could see mid-to-high double-digit gains from a further short-term rise in share prices.
Disclosure: The author of this article has no position in the company mentioned here, but may trade after the next 72 hours. The author receives no compensation from any company mentioned in this article.