James DeFranco, a director at DISH Network Group (DISH), recently picked up 1,250,000 shares. The buy increased his stake by over 154 percent, and came to a total purchase price of just under $24.3 million.
The buy comes a day after another company director picked up 5,000 shares for just over $95,000. Going further back, the last insider buys occurred in July 2019, and company insiders have generally been moderate sellers of shares over the past three years.
Overall, insiders at the company own about 14.9 percent of shares.
The pay-TV company has seen shares slide nearly 53 percent in the past year. While earnings are down about 25 percent over the same time, revenue is flat. And the company trades for about 7 times forward earnings.
Action to take: Shares are statistically cheap. While the stock doesn’t pay a dividend, the relatively high amount of insider ownership indicates a long-term alignment, which may result in the company’s sale or an acquisition that could improve the business going forward.
Traders might want to consider the current short-term downtrend in shares as likely to continue. The September $20 puts are an at-the-money trade going for about $2.70 right now. The options could see high double-digit returns on a further downtrend in shares.
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.