Holly Energy Partners, L.P. (HEP)

[Wildbilly]

Where the (Insider) Buys Are

By Grace L. Williams

Broke thru bottom trend.



After what seems like constant coverage of selling over at Inside Scoop, an update from our sources at InsiderScore grabbed our attention after we read, “On a sector level, energy continues to show Buy bias signals.”

Naturally, we started to wonder where the juice is in energy and after digging around a little, we learned that there have been many micro buys within the sector over the past couple of weeks. So, of course, we wanted to present some of the highlights.

We’ll start with a cluster buy at Energy XXI (EXXI) where two executives purchased $195,100 in shares on May 7. InsiderScore notes that:

The purchases were the largest by insiders since 2011 and created a sentiment alignment alongside the oil and natural gas company’s recently announced first buyback plan.

Next up is Murphy Oil (MUR) where Chairman and former CEO Claiborne Deming bought 30,000 shares for $1.9 million over May 9-10. The buy happened around the same time Murphy Oil announced that its current CEO Steven Cosse would be leaving as the company has planned a spin off of its refinery and retail operations.

Holly Energy (HEP) also made the cut after the company’s president and former CFO Bruce Shaw bought 7,000 shares for $26,400 on May 10. This marks Shaw’s first purchase at the company.

Terrence Jacobs, a director at Linn Energy (LINE) bought 5,000 shares for $172,900 on May 10. InsiderScore notes that although is his purchase was small, “[Jacobs] who has a solid track record for buying at the oil and gas company gas company, modestly increased his holdings with his first purchase in nearly two years.”

(Barron’s wrote a bearish piece about Linn (sub required) in the May 4 issue; it has fallen 6% since our story appeared.)

Last but never least, we looked at Sunoco Logistics (SXL), which caught our eye after CFO Martin Salinas bought 2,800 shares worth $172,900 on May 14. Salinas made a similar purchase in March. InsiderScore writes:

Salinas is again putting in cash as shares trade within 10% of that high. As we noted in March, it’s a positive to see this legacy ETP-related insider buying with shares at these levels.