Insider Trades: The 24 ASX 200 directors buying shares after earnings

Welcome back to the Insider Trades Series – A summary of on-market ASX 200 director transactions valued at more than $10,000. The trades have all taken place between February 15 and 23.

As reporting season enters its final week, trading restrictions are lifting for early reporters, leading to a surge in director buying among large-cap names. Below, we've highlighted companies where three or more unique directors have made purchases.

Graincorp Directors Buy the Dip

Graincorp announced (14 Feb) a full-year guidance update, including:

• Underlying EBITDA between $270-310 million (FY23: $565 million)

• Underlying NPAT between $65-95 million (FY23: $250 million)

• Receivals of 10.0 million to 11.0 million metric tonnes vs 13.9 million a year ago

• Management said ""In FY24, we are seeing a return to more normalised crop volumes and a moderation of margins from historically high levels across our business."

• The stock finished the session down 12.3%

Analysts had mixed things to say about Graincorp after the guidance came in below consensus expectations. The downturn was attributed to a normalisation in crop volumes and margins from historically high levels. Despite the near-term headwinds, the long-term outlook appears more positive, with some analysts upgrading their FY25 forecast based on optimistic crop size predictions and potential benefits from strategic investments. However, there remains a clear divergence among analyst views, heavily influenced by cyclical weather patterns and global crop market dynamics.

Graincorp 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Whitehaven Directors Buy into Weakness

Whitehaven reported a relatively soft first-half result (15 Feb), which include:

• Revenue down 58% to $1.59 billion ($1.62 billion consensus estimate)

• Underlying net profit after tax down 79% of $372.3 million

• Net cash down 43% to $1.5 billion

• Interim dividend of 7 cents per share

• The stock finished the session down 5.7%

"We think the market reaction today was too negative (stock down -5.73%, coal peers down 2.5%)," Morgan Stanley said in a note dated 15 February.

Whitehaven 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Corporate Travel's Shocking Selloff

Corporate Travel Managing Director Jamie Pherous bought nearly $1.4 million worth of shares last week. This follows a 20% post-earnings selloff. Some of the key numbers for the first-half of FY24 include:

• Revenue up 25% to $363.7 million, a -5% miss against consensus

• Net profit up 162% to $57.9 million, a -6% miss against consensus

• Interim dividend of 17 cents per share was -10.5% below expectations of 19 cents

• Management flagged that North American clients ran out of budget around mid-September due to high ticket prices

• UK Bridging Contract ($3bn contract value over two years for UK government to manage travel logistics for Asylum Seekers) materially underperformed expectations due to immigration issues and timing delays

"Messy result, although majority of the downgrade was out of management control. Looking forward, we estimate we’re still in uncertain times and lack clarity around the BAU base to which to extrapolate from," Citi said in a note dated 21 February.

"Given the unusual and lumpy items near term, we lack confidence in forecasting earnings and subsequently we downgrade our recommendation to Neutral. We note however 5-year targets appear impressive if achievable."

Corporate Travel Management 12-month price chart (Source: Market Index)

Top ASX 200 Insider Buys

The Lone Sell

Seek Chief Executive Ian Narev sold a sizeable $744,000 worth of shares, marking the largest insider sell since October 2023 (when he sold $4.6 million worth of shares).

The company reported its first-half results on 13 February, which included:

• Group revenue down 4.8% to $596.8 million, a -2.8% miss against consensus

• Adjusted net profit down 24.1% to $107.5 million, a -9.3% miss against consensus

• Full-year revenue guidance of $1.15-1.21 billion was a 3% downgrade against prior guidance

• The stock finished the session down -4.6%, up from session lows of -13.3%

"We view Seek as the deepest cyclical amongst the digital classified stocks we cover; for now we prefer Carsales and REA Group ... but this EPS leverage will eventually turn to Seek's advantage, when the ANZ job cycle turns up again," Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note dated 13 February.