Spartech insiders buying shares

Kathy Shwiff had an interesting "Inside Track" column yesterday about executives at Spartech Corp. buying shares in the company -- after recent bad news sent the price plummeting. Remember the Spartech story? The sheet extruder and compounder on Sept. 8 named board member Victoria Holt as its president and CEO, replacing Myles Odaniell. The change came the same day that the company released poor third-quarter financial results that sent its stock price tumbling more than 30 percent. Shwiff, in her column in The Wall Street Journal, noted that some Spartech executives took advantage of the stock price dip and bought lots of shares. Holt, for example, bought 72,000 shares for more than $500,000 on Sept. 14. Other senior executives also purchased shares. The column notes that as a new CEO, Holt might choose to make moves right away that could create more short-term pain for the share price, such as taking charges against earnings. But the insider stock purchases could be a postive sign for Spartech's longer-term prospects. Jonathan Moreland, director of research for InsiderInsights.com, told Shwiff that the insider purchases show confidence in the new management and are a reason for investors to consider the stock.