Insider Trades: Directors are buying shares in these 12 ASX 200 companies

A summary of S&P/ASX 200 director transactions worth over $10,000 between 20-29 March.

Top ASX 200 insider buys

Interesting observations

Harvey Norman: The man does not stop

Harvey Norman co-founder and executive chairman Gerry Harvey has been on one of the most intense buying sprees I’ve ever seen. Here’s a summary of his purchases this month:

• March 1-3: $8.0m

• March 6-10 : $14.9m

• March 13-17: $44.6m

• March 20-24: $7.5m

• March 27-28: $1.5m

He purchased about $76.5 million in March at a weighted average of $3.79 per share, which is marginally below Tuesday’s close of $3.72.

Harvey Norman 12-month price chart

Siteminder: Dip buying

Between 9-23 March, Siteminder shares tanked around 23% from $3.90 to year-to-date lows of around $3.00. This weakness was exacerbated by the Silicon Valley Bank failure – where the company had ‘up to $10 million’ of cash holdings and an undrawn US$20 million revolving credit facility with the bank.

 Siteminder Director and early angel investor Leslie Szekely purchased a timely $150,000 parcel on 23 March at $3.00 per share.

Siteminder 3-month price chart

Appen, Metcash and Nufarm: More timely dip buying 

The ASX 200 is up around 1.7% from its March 20 low and US markets have been relatively buoyant thanks to the outperformance of mega cap tech stocks. 

Appen, Metcash and Nufarm director transactions reflect more well-timed purchases around recent lows, with all three purchases currently up around 3-5%.

In the case of Appen, its last director transaction (before the one from this week) was on 8 March 2022. During this time, the stock has tumbled around 61.4%. Could this purchase be a symbol that the worst is behind the embattled tech company?