Insider Periscope Weekly Insider Periscope Appearing in over 150 publications nationwide, Periscope highlights significant insider activity in both individual companies and market sectors. With equity indices slumping, much has been made of the lack of buying by corporate insiders. For one thing, the broader market hasn't suffered nearly so much as the former tech darlings. As such, despite the very recent weakness in many of these groups, it is a bit early to expect insiders at these companies to be buying shares. Quite the contrary, in many cases, they are just now locking in last year's gains.
Insiders are, however, buying at a number of smaller biotech and drug development stocks.
Interestingly, United Therapeutics rebounded smartly following last year's biotech free-fall, largely on the strength of positive clinical trial results for lead drug Uniprost. Unfortunately, further review revealed that while combined test results achieved set standards for the FDA, neither individual study satisfied its primary endpoints. In the end, the FDA accepted the combined results for review, but only under stringent requirements. Fears that Uniprost would not receive FDA approval prompted a number of analyst downgrades and a considerable sell-off. To make matters worse, in December the company trimmed its revenue targets for upcoming years and announced the resignation of two company founders.