Penny stocks – the cheap stocks trading under $5 per share, offer investors massive upside potential alongside higher risk. Since even incremental price moves translate into huge percentage gains in the stock market, timing entries right can set you up for explosive profits.
One strategy to pinpoint penny stocks likely to break out is tracking insider trading moves reported to the SEC on Form 4 filings.
How Legal Insider Trading Works
Corporate executives and directors often hold significant share positions and stock options in their companies. Periodically they will buy or sell their own company’s stock based on their insider knowledge and expectations of future performance.
Monitoring clusters of purchasing activity can telegraph confidence ahead of market-moving events like earnings surprises, clinical trial data releases, product launches, expansion plans and more.
Conversely, an unusual flurry of insider selling may suggest overvaluation or underlying business struggles ahead.
Interpreting Insider Transactions
The most informative transactions to watch are “open market” buys and sells using personal funds. These indicate the purest sentiment compared to transaction like option executions or gifts which may be for other reasons.
When company leaders spend their own capital to acquire more shares, it often reflects their strong belief in upside ahead and that the market undervalues their current trajectory. Nobody understands better than C-suite insiders after all, given their integral roles and access to proprietary data.
The more frequent and larger the transaction amounts, the stronger the smoke signaling a potential catalyst run ahead.
Cross Referencing Other Metrics
Insider trading analysis should never stand alone, but tie into a mosaic of other metrics when screening promising penny stocks.
Earnings growth potential, revenue pipelines, intellectual property portfolios, debt profiles, short interest and more tell a fuller story.
Does the overall financial and operational picture align with what insiders’ activity may be telegraphing? Or are there disconnects to investigate further?
Building a diligent screening process incorporating insider activity alongside other key fundamental and technical measures allows cutting through the noise to uncover penny stocks with true breakout potential ahead of the crowd.
The Potential Advantage
Timeliness is everything with penny stocks and insider moves may foreshadow big developments set to propel prices higher within weeks or months. Getting positioned early in a cheap stock when valuation remains low and prior runways remains long amplifies eventual upside exposure exponentially when market dynamics shift positive.
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While insider trading offers no guarantees, historically incorporating these signals as part of a holistic screening process to identify promising penny stocks to watch can yield much higher success rates and returns compared to just picking tiny companies randomly.
Do diligence, but don’t automatically ignore low-priced stocks once you spot a cluster of deliberate insider buying reported. Where savvy executives are risking their own capital confident of gains ahead, opportunities may exist for strategic traders to follow their lead for potential explosive upside too.
Penny Stocks To Buy According To Insiders In December
Erasca, Inc. (NASDAQ: ERAS)
Generation Bio (NASDAQ: GBIO)
Applied Therapeutics (NASDAQ: APLT)
Erasca, Inc. (ERAS)
Erasca, Inc. is a clinical-stage precision oncology company. They focus on developing therapies for RAS/MAPK pathway-driven cancers and aims to comprehensively shut down this pathway for cancer treatment.
Earlier this quarter the company announced milestone news that has turned heads. This milestone was achieved in their naporafenib and ERAS-801 programs. Key achievements include aligning with health authorities for the Phase 3 SEACRAFT-2 trial of naporafenib in NRAS mutant melanoma. This is a significant step toward advancing this therapy. The company also reported identifying the maximum tolerated dose for ERAS-801 in glioblastoma, an important milestone in drug development.
Furthermore, Erasca has refined its pipeline to concentrate on high-potential programs. This strategic shift involves deprioritizing certain trials, allowing for better allocation of resources. Importantly, these strategic decisions have extended the company’s cash runway to the first half of 2026. This extension provides financial stability and more time to achieve critical research and development goals.
Are insiders buying ERAS stock? Yes they are and this month Director Alexander Casding and CEO Jonathan Lim are at the center of attention. Lim purchased 1 million shares at an average price of $1.70. Meanwhile, Casdin picked up 30,000 shares at an average of roughly $1.66
Generation Bio (GBIO)
This biotech company specializes in genetic medicines. They focus on developing treatments for rare and prevalent diseases using their novel platforms. News is also acting as a recent catalyst in addition to insider trading this month.
Generation Bio announced a strategic reorganization focusing on its ctLNP and iqDNA platforms. This reorganization, including a 40% workforce reduction, aims to extend its cash runway into the second half of 2027. The company is prioritizing the development of ctLNP for extrahepatic cell types and continuing its hemophilia A program using the iqDNA platform.
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Speculatively speaking, the strategic reorganization could have mixed effects on the stock price. The focus on key platforms and extended cash runway might be seen positively by investors, indicating a clear strategic direction. However, the workforce reduction could raise concerns about the company’s immediate operational capabilities.
Nevertheless, insiders are seeing this as one of the penny stocks to buy. Directors Nicholson, Rowland, Quinn, and Appelhans have been active this month, collectively purchasing over 500,000 shares. The largest buy came from Charles Rowland for 342,960 shares at a cost average of around $1.39.
Applied Therapeutics (APLT)
Applied Therapeutics focuses on developing novel treatments for rare and fatal diseases. They are dedicated to addressing significant unmet medical needs. Not only is insider trading a focus but so are the comapny’s latest earings results.
Its third-quarter 2023 financial highlights include updates on its clinical programs and business performance. The company emphasized its commitment to advancing its pipeline while maintaining a stable financial position. One of the highlights included confirmation that Applied is on track to submit an NDA to the FDA and EMA for its AT-007 for galactosemia, this quarter. With this becoming a source of speculation, APLT stock has traded higher this month.
Director Stacy Kanter picked up additional shares less than a month after this update. The buy was at an average price of around $2.18 for a total of 30,000 shares. This more than doubled Kanter’s existing position size to 63,000 shares of APLT stock.
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