US executives leading surge of insider buying amid stock rout

New York

EVEN as global stocks lurch towards a bear market, one set of investors who in the past has picked the bottom is buying.

A total of 699 officers and directors of American companies purchased their own stock in the last 30 days compared with 828 who sold, the most bullish ratio in more than four years, according to data compiled by The Washington Service and Bloomberg. Stocks with the worst losses, such as financial firms, are seeing the biggest increase in demand.

Executives are stepping up purchases as the decline that erased more than US$2 trillion in equities sends the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to its cheapest valuations in two years. Their optimism stands in contrast with Wall Street's professional equity forecasters, who have started telling…