3 Hot Insider Trades, Plus Hedge Fund Moves: Coinbase, Kohl's

By Sarina Isaacs

Investing.com - Insider trading can serve as a bellwether for investors as the executives leading a company signal confidence - or lack thereof - through their purchases or sales of that company's shares. And hedge fund activity can indicate big changes on the horizon.

Here are some of the biggest pieces of news for insider and hedge fund activity from the past week, as first reported on InvestingPro+.

Insider Trades

Enviva (NYSE:EVA) Director Jeffrey Ubben disclosed a $10 million purchase of 200,000 shares at prices from $49.90-$51.75 following a sell-off on a Blue Orca short report. More insider purchases followed: Director John Bumgarner bought 15,000 shares on at $51.34; CFO Shai Even, bought 4900 shares at $51.53; and EVP Operations Edward Royal Smith bought 3,000 shares at $51.92. The stock is down 22.2% for the past week.

Rocket Companies Inc (NYSE:RKT) CEO Jay Farner, bought 89,700 shares, or $600,000 worth, from 10/10/22-10/12/22 at prices from $6.66-$6.71, bringing his direct stake to 4,684,207 shares. He also owns another 204,000 shares indirectly. Farner has been an aggressive buyer of the stock over the past several months.

Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) Director Tobias Lutke bought 5,519 shares, or $373,139.59 worth, on 10/11/22 at $67.61, bringing his indirect stake to 76,944 shares. He also owns 522 shares directly. Lutke is the founder and CEO of Shopify (NYSE:SHOP). He has been a steady buyer of COIN stock lately.

Hedge Fund Activity

Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. (OTC:PSHZF) announced that it had commenced a cash tender offer to purchase up to 6,340,000 shares of common stock of The Howard Hughes (NYSE:HHC) Corporation at between $52.25-$60.00 per share, net to the seller in cash. The exact price will be determined through a modified Dutch auction. If the purchasers accept any common shares for purchase pursuant to the offer, Pershing Square, Pershing Square International and Pershing Square Holdings, Inc. will purchase approximately 7.47%, 2.27% and 90.26%, respectively, of those shares and their purchase obligation will be several in accordance with those percentages and not joint.

Shares of Kohl's Corp (NYSE:KSS) are up over 2% in pre-open Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported activist investor Macellum Advisors GP LLC is ramping up pressure on the department-store chain to make board changes. It’s either that, or Kohl’s management will face another proxy fight. The activist investor has a roughly 5% stake in Kohl’s and is calling for the company to change at least three long-serving directors, including its chairman.