Top Stocks With Insider Buying, Buybacks

Large repurchases make Endo Pharma and Wind River Systems stocks to watch.
By James Altucher ,

Updated from 7:01 a.m. EDT

Part of the philosophy of Stockpickr is to follow in the footsteps of smart people. This could mean a few different things.

First, it could mean piggybacking great investors like Warren Buffett or George Soros. Other times it means buying what the CEOs, employees and directors of a company are buying. These are people who know the intimate details of their companies far better than you or me.

The perfect setup is when one of these company insiders or an entire board (in the case of a stock buyback) are buying shares at the same time that some smart savvy investors are as well.

Each Thursday we update the Stockpickr

Top 10 Insider Purchases and Buybacks

portfolio, featuring the stocks of the week that had either big insider purchases or newly announced buybacks as well as "smart money" accumulating shares.

Endo Pharmaceuticals

(ENDP) - Get Report

makes this week's portfolio. The Chadds Ford, Pa.-based company last week announced a $750 million stock-buyback program. The drugmaker specializes in products that treat and manage pain.

In February, the company reported a solid rise in fourth-quarter results, beating Wall Street profit expectations, as well as raising its full-year top- and bottom-line guidance. It's also good to see that analysts at Robert W Baird reiterate their outperform rating and increase their price target for the stock, from $40 to $45.

We also like to see that

Duquesne Capital

is bullish on Endo. Among the $4 billion investment fund's newest positions are

Qualcomm

(QCOM) - Get Report

and

St. Jude Medical

(STJ)

.

Moore Capital

is another noteworthy group of hedge funds that like Endo. The group's signature Moore Global Investments fund is run by famed trader Louis Bacon, who recently opened positions in

CA

(CA) - Get Report

and

Teradata

(TDC) - Get Report

.

So with Endo Pharma, we have a buyback, solid earnings expectations, an outperform rating with increased price targets and two well-known investors in the stock. It may be time to take a closer look.

Next on the list is

Wind River Systems

(WIND)

, which last week announced a new $50 million buyback plan. The software company, headquartered in Alameda, Calif., recently completed its previous repurchase plan, which was authorized in June of 2007. Under this plan, the company bought back about 6.8 million shares for a total of $50 million.

Wind River reported fourth-quarter results on March 6 that showed an 11% jump in revenue to $84.3 million. It next reports earnings May 29.

Cross Research believes WIND will climb higher and recently reiterated their buy rating and $11 price target for the stock. The analysts from Cross said, "We think the previous repurchase program may have been accretive by as much as 5 cents per share assuming most of the stock bought back was near the nadir in prices following earnings."

The analysts added, "The potential for further accretion remains, but we suspect that the allocation of another $50 million will have the effect of serving notice to the marketplace that recent lows were too cheap for the Company to stand by without taking action to buy back stock at very attractive levels."

The fact that

George Soros

likes the stock is reason enough to check it out. Some of his other stock holdings are

Vale

(RIO) - Get Report

and

JetBlue

(JBLU) - Get Report

.

Another famous investor who's invested in Wind River is Kenneth Griffin, who runs

Citadel Investment Group

, one of the world's largest hedge funds. The $20 billion Chicago-based hedge fund also holds shares of

Boeing

(BA) - Get Report

and

3Com

(COMS)

.

So with Wind River, we have a buyback, a buy rating and two noteworthy investors in the stock. It may be time to do some homework on WIND.

For more stocks and analysis, check out this week's

Top 10 Insider Purchases and Buybacks

at Stockpickr.com.

For the 10 most recent portfolios, check out:

You can also review

Barron's Top Insider Purchases

from the prior week as well as Cramer's

"Mad Money" Buybacks

.

At the time of publication, Altucher and/or his fund had no positions in stocks mentioned, although positions may change at any time.

James Altucher is president of

Stockpickr

LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of TheStreet.com and part of its network of Web properties, and a managing partner at Formula Capital, an alternative asset management firm that runs a fund of hedge funds. He is also a weekly columnist for the

Financial Times

and the author of

Trade Like a Hedge Fund

,

Trade Like Warren Buffett

and

SuperCa$h

. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Altucher appreciates your feedback;

click here

to send him an email.

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