Francis Blake, a director at Delta Air Lines (DAL), recently bought 12,880 shares. That came to a total cost just under $497,000, and increased the director’s holdings by 16 percent.
This marks the first buy at the airliner since another director bought $293,000 in shares back in July. A third director also rounded out the total insider buying over the past year. Otherwise, company executives have been modest sellers of shares in the ensuing months.
Overall, company insiders own 0.3 percent of shares.
Shares of the airline company are flat over the past year. Earnings jumped 42 percent as travel trended higher, even as higher fuel costs may have weighed on the stock.
The stock trades at under 5 times earnings, down form 90 times earnings last year. Shares may trend higher as airliners have been focused on keeping costs low and running fewer flights.
Action to take: Investors can consider shares to buy at or below current prices. While the stock doesn’t buy a dividend, Delta is one of the better operated airlines and has a high return on equity of 25 percent.
For traders, shares are in an uptrend. The June $40 calls, last going for about $3.00, are a near-the-money trade that can likely deliver mid-double-digit gains in the months ahead.
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 of the companies mentioned in this article.