We love it when a famous CEO buys a large chunk of his company’s stock.
In Jan 2022, Reed Hastings, the Co-CEO of Netflix, bought 51,440 shares for nearly $20 million even though he already owned over 5 million shares.
This was his first open market purchase of Netflix shares ever. He didn’t even buy during the dark times of the financial crisis.
This big purchase made headlines and was analyzed on Twitter and Stocktwits by stock investors.
Insiders Buying En Masse
But what about when non-famous insiders buy their company’s stock and when a bunch of them buy en masse?
This mass insider buying behavior is called a “cluster buy” and it is the strongest signal you can get in insider trading.
When one insider buys, he might be considered an optimist, especially when he’s the CEO, but when four or five insiders all buy at the same time?
Now that’s a powerful consensus.
But you’re not going to hear about the cluster buys from the media. There aren’t going to be headlines trumpeting the buys of a few corporate Directors and a CFO.
Nope. The cluster buy simply isn’t glamorous enough.
Investors therefore have to dig below the surface to find the insider cluster buys. But once you do, that’s where big rewards can be found.
Cluster Buying Sends the Strongest Signal
Why do insiders spend so much of their money on their own companies’ stock when they already own a ton of shares already?
Greed!
Pure and simple.
The opportunity to make more money motivates people – even people who are already well off like highly paid CEOs and CFOs.
When insiders buy in a cluster, it’s because they all know something very good is going on at the company. Maybe it is a new product. Or contract. Or pending merger. Whatever the reason, they are all very confident that shares will be on the rise.
After all, who would buy more stock in a company if they knew it was sinking? And why would there be several of them buying unless they didn’t collectively believe that their stock was a value?
When things at the company are THAT good, insiders don’t want to miss out when everyone else is cashing in. Call it insider peer pressure, if you will.
More . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy These Insider Stocks Today
When in-the-know officers dip into their own pockets to buy shares of their own company, there’s only one reason: They expect the stock price to go up.
Because of their inside knowledge of anticipated contracts, mergers, product breakthroughs, and the like, insiders must report their trades to the SEC within 48 hours. Zacks has zeroed in on the best of these buys.
Our recommended insider buys are time-sensitive and normally closed to public view – but you can still see them until midnight Sunday, June 29th.
Catch our selected insider trades right now >>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Life Cluster Buying
The small regional and community banks have been overlooked on Wall Street since the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. But, in the 17 years since, most of these banks have gotten their balance sheets in order and are now thriving.
First Busey Corp. is a small cap bank headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. It focuses on central Illinois, metro St. Louis, and also has three branches in southwest Florida and one in Indianapolis.
However, in March 2025, it acquired Kansas-based CrossFirst Bankshares. CrossFirst has branches in cities not served by First Busey, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, and Phoenix. With the merger completed, First Busey now has 78 full-service locations across 10 states.
In Feb 2025, prior to the merger, two directors stepped in to buy shares. But after the acquisition, the insiders have continued to buy.
Like most stocks, shares of First Busey plunged after Liberation Day and the tariff uncertainty in March and April 2025, presenting a buying opportunity.
On May 23, 2025, three directors bought more shares and on June 12 and June 13, 2025, three directors stepped in to buy again.
Why do these insiders keep buying more shares?
First Busey is cheap and earnings are expected to rise 22.1% this year.
Buy When the Insiders Buy
When high level insiders buy, they are required to report the purchases to the SEC within 48 hours of the trade. The trade then becomes public information.
Hedge funds and other professional investors routinely use this information to get an edge on their trades.
For most of us, though, it’s not easy to get access to the insider information.
While the media will tout the huge insider buys from celebrity CEOs like Reed Hastings’ Jan 2022 $20 million Netflix share purchase, you’ll almost never hear about the non-celebrity CEOs, or other top ranked officers when they buy their stocks.
Was anyone talking about all the recent buying at First Busey?
The challenge is getting easy and reliable access to all the insider trades and then figuring out which ones to buy.
Where to Find the Cluster Buys
Anyone can go on the SEC website and get the insider trading information, but it’s time consuming to search by individual companies.
Some investment firms collect the insider buying data and can provide it to you as a daily list. Have you ever seen one of those lists? The sheer number of companies can be overwhelming.
And those lists don’t usually separate out the cluster buys, which sometimes take place on different days in the same week.
For example, if you’re getting daily insider updates, you may not realize that the CEO bought on Monday but three directors bought on Tuesday. You may pass by those ‘hidden’ cluster buys without even realizing it.
Even if you got a list of the cluster buyers, how would you narrow it down to the stocks that are truly worth buying? If I’m going to buy when the insiders are buying, I want to buy only their top picks.
Today’s Hottest Insider Buys
Zacks' research team has developed a unique strategy to identify only those top picks insiders are scooping up.
We monitor selected insider buying activity at companies with strong earnings and valuations. Then we analyze:
• Who's buying? How much money are they putting in?
• When, if ever, have they bought shares in the past?
• Do they receive shares as part of their compensation, but still want more?
• Are we seeing "Cluster Buys"?
Very few stocks meet the demanding criteria of our Insider Trader portfolio >>
While not all our insider picks are winners, we recently closed gains of +60.0%, +70.6%, and +113.4%.¹
See the stocks we're currently holding for just $1. There's no obligation to spend a cent more.
Free Bonus: Just for exploring our insider picks, you can download Zacks' Special Report, 5 Stocks Set to Double, free of charge. These five buy-and-holds balance our more active Insider Trader. Each is the #1 favorite of a Zacks expert for its potential to jump +100% or more over the next year.
Important note: Access to the Insider Trader portfolio and Special Report is limited. This opportunity ends at midnight Sunday, June 29.
See our insider trades and download 5 Stocks Set to Double now >>
All the Best,
Tracey Ryniec
Insider Stocks Strategist
Tracey Ryniec, Zacks' insider and value strategist, is Editor in Charge of Insider Trader.
¹ The results listed above are not (or may not be) representative of the performance of all selections made by Zacks Investment Research's newsletter editors and may represent the partial close of a position. Access grants you a comprehensive list of all open and closed trades.
Image: Bigstock
The #1 Insider Signal Every Trader Should Know
We love it when a famous CEO buys a large chunk of his company’s stock.
In Jan 2022, Reed Hastings, the Co-CEO of Netflix, bought 51,440 shares for nearly $20 million even though he already owned over 5 million shares.
This was his first open market purchase of Netflix shares ever. He didn’t even buy during the dark times of the financial crisis.
This big purchase made headlines and was analyzed on Twitter and Stocktwits by stock investors.
Insiders Buying En Masse
But what about when non-famous insiders buy their company’s stock and when a bunch of them buy en masse?
This mass insider buying behavior is called a “cluster buy” and it is the strongest signal you can get in insider trading.
When one insider buys, he might be considered an optimist, especially when he’s the CEO, but when four or five insiders all buy at the same time?
Now that’s a powerful consensus.
But you’re not going to hear about the cluster buys from the media. There aren’t going to be headlines trumpeting the buys of a few corporate Directors and a CFO.
Nope. The cluster buy simply isn’t glamorous enough.
Investors therefore have to dig below the surface to find the insider cluster buys. But once you do, that’s where big rewards can be found.
Cluster Buying Sends the Strongest Signal
Why do insiders spend so much of their money on their own companies’ stock when they already own a ton of shares already?
Greed!
Pure and simple.
The opportunity to make more money motivates people – even people who are already well off like highly paid CEOs and CFOs.
When insiders buy in a cluster, it’s because they all know something very good is going on at the company. Maybe it is a new product. Or contract. Or pending merger. Whatever the reason, they are all very confident that shares will be on the rise.
After all, who would buy more stock in a company if they knew it was sinking? And why would there be several of them buying unless they didn’t collectively believe that their stock was a value?
When things at the company are THAT good, insiders don’t want to miss out when everyone else is cashing in. Call it insider peer pressure, if you will.
More . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buy These Insider Stocks Today
When in-the-know officers dip into their own pockets to buy shares of their own company, there’s only one reason: They expect the stock price to go up.
Because of their inside knowledge of anticipated contracts, mergers, product breakthroughs, and the like, insiders must report their trades to the SEC within 48 hours. Zacks has zeroed in on the best of these buys.
Our recommended insider buys are time-sensitive and normally closed to public view – but you can still see them until midnight Sunday, June 29th.
Catch our selected insider trades right now >>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Real Life Cluster Buying
The small regional and community banks have been overlooked on Wall Street since the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. But, in the 17 years since, most of these banks have gotten their balance sheets in order and are now thriving.
First Busey Corp. is a small cap bank headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. It focuses on central Illinois, metro St. Louis, and also has three branches in southwest Florida and one in Indianapolis.
However, in March 2025, it acquired Kansas-based CrossFirst Bankshares. CrossFirst has branches in cities not served by First Busey, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, and Phoenix. With the merger completed, First Busey now has 78 full-service locations across 10 states.
In Feb 2025, prior to the merger, two directors stepped in to buy shares. But after the acquisition, the insiders have continued to buy.
Like most stocks, shares of First Busey plunged after Liberation Day and the tariff uncertainty in March and April 2025, presenting a buying opportunity.
On May 23, 2025, three directors bought more shares and on June 12 and June 13, 2025, three directors stepped in to buy again.
Why do these insiders keep buying more shares?
First Busey is cheap and earnings are expected to rise 22.1% this year.
Buy When the Insiders Buy
When high level insiders buy, they are required to report the purchases to the SEC within 48 hours of the trade. The trade then becomes public information.
Hedge funds and other professional investors routinely use this information to get an edge on their trades.
For most of us, though, it’s not easy to get access to the insider information.
While the media will tout the huge insider buys from celebrity CEOs like Reed Hastings’ Jan 2022 $20 million Netflix share purchase, you’ll almost never hear about the non-celebrity CEOs, or other top ranked officers when they buy their stocks.
Was anyone talking about all the recent buying at First Busey?
The challenge is getting easy and reliable access to all the insider trades and then figuring out which ones to buy.
Where to Find the Cluster Buys
Anyone can go on the SEC website and get the insider trading information, but it’s time consuming to search by individual companies.
Some investment firms collect the insider buying data and can provide it to you as a daily list. Have you ever seen one of those lists? The sheer number of companies can be overwhelming.
And those lists don’t usually separate out the cluster buys, which sometimes take place on different days in the same week.
For example, if you’re getting daily insider updates, you may not realize that the CEO bought on Monday but three directors bought on Tuesday. You may pass by those ‘hidden’ cluster buys without even realizing it.
Even if you got a list of the cluster buyers, how would you narrow it down to the stocks that are truly worth buying? If I’m going to buy when the insiders are buying, I want to buy only their top picks.
Today’s Hottest Insider Buys
Zacks' research team has developed a unique strategy to identify only those top picks insiders are scooping up.
We monitor selected insider buying activity at companies with strong earnings and valuations. Then we analyze:
• Who's buying? How much money are they putting in?
• When, if ever, have they bought shares in the past?
• Do they receive shares as part of their compensation, but still want more?
• Are we seeing "Cluster Buys"?
Very few stocks meet the demanding criteria of our Insider Trader portfolio >>
While not all our insider picks are winners, we recently closed gains of +60.0%, +70.6%, and +113.4%.¹
See the stocks we're currently holding for just $1. There's no obligation to spend a cent more.
Free Bonus: Just for exploring our insider picks, you can download Zacks' Special Report, 5 Stocks Set to Double, free of charge. These five buy-and-holds balance our more active Insider Trader. Each is the #1 favorite of a Zacks expert for its potential to jump +100% or more over the next year.
Important note: Access to the Insider Trader portfolio and Special Report is limited. This opportunity ends at midnight Sunday, June 29.
See our insider trades and download 5 Stocks Set to Double now >>
All the Best,
Tracey Ryniec
Insider Stocks Strategist
Tracey Ryniec, Zacks' insider and value strategist, is Editor in Charge of Insider Trader.
¹ The results listed above are not (or may not be) representative of the performance of all selections made by Zacks Investment Research's newsletter editors and may represent the partial close of a position. Access grants you a comprehensive list of all open and closed trades.