Monday November 30, 2009
Recent corporate insider buying at tech company Zoran (NASDAQ: ZRAN) has attracted the attention of Paul McWilliams. Here's the "inside story" from his Next Inning service.
For the most part, there's not been that much activity in the overall technology sector. However, I noticed that the CEO at Zoran had stepped up to the plate recently with a $98K buy.
"And, when looking more closely, I noticed that two directors have also been recent buyers, one for $43K and the other for $68K.
"While the aggregate dollar amount here isn't huge, for a company the size of ZRAN and when considering there were three different buyers, it shows at the very least confidence.
" In addition to this, CEO Levy Gerzberg has shown good timing in his insider activity going back to 2005. In looking at his record we can see that sells were made in 2005, 2006 and 2007 at prices ranging from $20.19 to $27.31.
"Between these, a large buy was executed in 2006 at $12.36. More recently we saw him as a buyer in 2008 at $8.28 and $8.30 and then again last week at $9.80.
"With comfortably more than $7 in balance sheet value, I think the downside for ZRAN is reasonably cushioned.
"Zoran is involved in digital entertainment and digital imaging products. I think ZRAN's exposure to the flat panel TV market via its Supra TV processor is being underestimated by Wall Street.
"Therefore, I think there is some reasonable room for a near-term upside to the rather dismal expectations listed from the 11 covering analysts.
"Based on this thinking and the vote of confidence implied by three insider buyers, I think there is room to speculate here for a price in the mid-teens during the coming year."
