Major Rite Aid Gains Tied To Insider Buying (RAD)

Rite Aid Corp. (NYSE: RAD) has been in trouble and its perpetual turnaround has been elusive or just short-lived at best with shares having slid more than 80% from 52-week highs.  You wouldn't know that if you just bought shares today for the first time.  Today we saw a filing from late Tuesday showing that insiders of the company have made close to $1.5 million in share purchases on the open market.

The first filing we saw was by CEO Mary Sammons who purchased 475,000 shares on the open market at $1.0016 and another 11,750 shares at $1.01.  Board members Robert Miller and George Golleher each bought 500,000 shares on the open markets at roughly the same levels.

Shares rose more than 23% to $1.42 on the news.  Insiders buying shares rarely causes such a strong move like this, but we have seen a monster sell-off before this and the company is expected to post losses for 2008 and again in 2009.  Its 52-week trading range is $0.98 to $6.13.

Jon C. Ogg
July 16, 2008