Director makes $275,000 buy.Richard Massey, a director atCannae Holdings (CNNE), picked up 10,000 shares recently, shelling out just over $275,000 to do so. The buy increased his holdings by nearly 5 percent, to just under 214,000 shares. This is his third buy of shares this year, and other insiders have been buyers at the firm, including the CFO last month. In the past two years, insiders have been steady buyers, with no sellers. Insiders own over 7 percent of shares. Cannae Holdings is an asset management firm that primarily invests in restaurants, technology-enabled healthcare service...

April 2020 put buying suggests further pain for shares.The April 2020 $6 put options onDeutsche Bank (DB) saw over 5,600 contracts trade, an 11-fold increase over the prior open interest of 526. With 190 days until expiration, the trade will move in-the-money if shares fall just $0.90 from their current price of $6.90, or about 15 percent. With shares trading as high as $11.50 in the past year, shares have been nearly halved, and this option trade is a bet on a further drop in shares. The German mega-bank, with over 90,000 employees, is one of the largest regional plays in Europe. Howeve...

Major owner $140,000 additional buy.James Filler, a major owner atCentury Bancorp (CNBKA), added 1,612 shares to his stake lately. This brought his total ownership up to 725,341 shares, and he paid nearly $140,000 to make the trade. This follows up from a 1,044 share buy he made last month, and other insiders have been buyers of shares near recent prices for the regional bank as well. There have been no insider sales in the past three years. Shares of the bank are up nearly 13 percent in the past year, handily beating the S&P 500’s return in that timeframe. Shares trade around 12 ...

Surge in October 25th call options.The October 25th $4 call options onYamana Gold (AUY) saw trading of over 2,950 options contracts against an open interest of 254. That 11-fold surge in volume indicates that at least one trader is betting on higher gold prices this month. With 16 days until expiration and with shares around $3.50, shares of the gold miner would need to rally at least 14.5 percent for the option to trade in-the-money. With the option trading at just $0.03, or $3 per contract, however, there’s little for the call buyer to lose even if the option expires later this month a...

Major owner makes $1.4 million buy.Outerbridge Master Fund, a major holder inBarnes & Noble Education (BNED), picked up nearly 476,000 shares recently, increasing their holdings by over 8 percent. The buy also raised their total share count to 6,396,895 shares. At a price of $3.01, the purchase came to just over $1.4 million, and is the fund’s third buy in the past three weeks. Corporate insiders have both bought and sold shares year-to-date. However, the bulk of sales occurred from a different fund exiting the position at prices over 50 percent higher than where shares trade today. ...

Director makes million-dollar buy.Director James Star ofChewy Inc (CHWY) bought 41,521 shares recently, increasing his stake by 83 percent. At a cost just under $24 per share, the buy came to $994,000. This is the second insider buy at the company since it went public from PetSmart back in June. Since the IPO, no insiders have sold shares, and the insider who did sell shares at the IPO was a fund, not a member of the corporate staff or board. Chewy shares went public this year at $35, traded as high as $41, but have since slid into the low $20 range, with shares starting to make an upwar...