Notable Insider Buys Of The Past Week Include Designer Brands, MacroGenics And More

• Insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, especially when markets are near all-time highs.
• The week's most notable insider buys were at two biotechs, a chemicals company and a shoemaker.
• Some insiders were making return trips to the buy window.

Conventional wisdom says that insiders and 10% owners really only buy shares of a company for one reason: they believe the stock price will rise and they want to profit from it. So insider buying can be an encouraging signal for potential investors, particularly when there is uncertainty in the markets or the markets are near all-time highs.

Note that with a new earnings-reporting season coming up, the windows will close for insiders to buy or sell shares. Here are a few of the most noteworthy insider purchases that were reported in the past week.

Three Alpine Immune Sciences Inc ALPN directors stepped up to the buy window last week to acquire more than 2.56 million shares altogether. At share prices ranging from $9.40 to $9.83, that cost them around $24.1 million.

Note that two of those directors have stakes of over 3.5 million shares, making them beneficial owners of the Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company. The timing of these purchases seems fortunate, as the stock ended last week trading at $10.36 a share.

Designer Brands Inc DBI saw its executive board chair, Jay Schottenstein, buy almost 1.49 million shares. That added up to more than $19.08 million, at per-share prices ranging from $12.64 to $13.00.

Note that Schottenstein also bought almost 178,600 shares in the previous week. This footwear maker's stock ended the past week at $13.82 per share, which is more than 6% higher than the top of his purchase price range.

A Sensient Technologies Corporation SXT 10% owner that has been scooping up shares for almost a month has indirectly purchased more than 183,800 additional shares of this producer of ingredients for foods and cosmetics. At $88.81 to $93.67 apiece, the cost for those shares totaled more than $14.77 million and raised the stake above 4.85 million shares. The stock ended last week at $91.85 a share, which is within the latest purchase price range.

The purchase of 600,000 MacroGenics Inc MGNX shares by a 10% owner at prices ranging from $19.93 to $20.95 apiece totaled more than $12.36 million. The stake was up to almost 6.88 million shares. The stock ended the week at $19.74, within the owner's purchase price range. Note that this owner also bought shares of Molecular Templates and Radius Health last week.

See also: 4 Stocks Insiders Are Selling

Some other sizable insider purchases reported last week:

• Cricut Inc CRCT beneficial owner buys almost 268,700 shares for around $8.2 million.
• Gulfport Energy Corp GPOR beneficial owner buys over 81,200 shares for almost $6.5 million.
• Myovant Sciences Ltd MYOV beneficial owner buys nearly 268,000 shares for around $5.9 million.
• GMS Inc GMS beneficial owner buys over 89,200 shares for more than $3.8 million.
• Cheniere Energy Partners LP CQP beneficial owner buys almost 30,500 shares for about $1.2 million.
• Blackstone Inc BX beneficial owner buys 30,400 shares for more than $1.2 million.

At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities. Keep up with all the latest breaking news and trading ideas by following Benzinga on Twitter.