CEOs Buy Shares at Pfizer and Uber
Posted: September 15, 2026
September 14, 2026 (Maple Hill Syndicate) –- Watching the trades of company chief executive officers (CEOs) is a fascinating sport. It can also be profitable.
Here are some notable CEO buys from August and September.
Pfizer
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) stock languishes at about $28. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, when Pfizer heroically came up with a workable vaccine, the stock traded above $50. At today’s price, it has a tempting dividend yield of more than 6%.
Albert Bouria, Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, spent just over $1 million in August to add to his holdings, which now total a little over $12 million. It was his first open-market purchase since he became CEO in 2019. He had sold some shares in 2020 and in 2016.
I think that Bouria’s buy will work out. Yes, Pfizer, like most big drug companies, has patent-expiration problems. But it has a robust pipeline.
In the same month that Bouria made his big purchase, two directors also bought. Mortimer Buckley, who is also a director at Boeing Co. (BA), spent a little over $960,000 Ronald Blaylock, who is also a director at CarMax Inc. (KMX) and WR Berkley Corp. (WRB), a bit under $1 million.
Pfizer shares trade at 36 times the past four quarters’ earnings, but less than 10 times the earnings analysts expect for the next four quarters.
Uber
Just three years ago, ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) was a hot stock, selling for about 70 times earnings.
No more. These days it goes for about 16 times earnings. That is interesting, since Uber’s profit per share now is about ten times what it was three years ago. And Uber isn’t just about rides anymore; it’s about food and freight delivery too.
CEO Dara Khrosrowshahi, who took the reins at Uber from co-founder Travis Kalanick in 2017, spent just over $10 million to buy shares on September 10. According to Gurufocus.com, Khosrowshahi now owns some $98 million in Uber stock and has a net worth of at least $152 million.
Uber had just cut its work force by about 3,300 people, or 10%. Khosrowshahi had said that there were too many layers of management, and that he wanted a “leaner organization.”
Analysts are eager to hop aboard Uber. Of 52 Wall Street types who venture an opinion, 45 rate it a “buy.” Six give it a “hold” and one rates it “underperform.”
Uber shares are down about 5% this year, and 25% over the past three years. In my judgment, that mostly reflects overvaluation in the past, not serious problems now. Uber is nicely profitable, with an after-tax profit margin of 17%.
Kennametal
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Kennametal Inc. (KMT) makes tools to cut or shape metal, coatings and engineered components (mining equipment, for example).
CEO Sanjay Chowbey paid $203,700 on September 11 to add to his holdings, which now total over $7 million. According to Gurufocus.com, he has made four previous purchases, with an average return of 22.7%.
A couple of investment managers I respect, Jeremy Grantham and Joel Greenblatt, added to their Kennametal holdings in the second quarter.
This stock seems very attractive to me at less than seven times earnings and just under 1.0 times revenue.
Performance
This is the 79th time I’ve written about insider purchases and sales in this column. I’m able to calculate one-year results for 69 columns—all those written from 1999 through a year ago. The record is, frankly, mixed.
I did well in warning people away from certain stocks even though insiders were buying. Those stocks trailed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Total Return Index bdy more than 22 percentage points on average.
I also did pretty well in warning about stocks with insider selling. Those lagged the index by 4.9 percentage points.
However, my “buy” recommendations based on insider buys have averaged only a 9% return, 2.3 percentage points behind the S&P.
There were also 15 cases where I noted insider buying, but made no comment or an ambiguous comment. Those stocks beat the index by more than 14 percentage points.
Bear in mind that my column results are hypothetical and shouldn’t be confused with results I obtain for clients. Also, past performance doesn’t predict the future.
My advice from a year ago also had mixed results. I recommended United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS), which scored a 27.3% return, beating the index ad 17.1%. Eastman Chemical Co. (EMN) returned 8.4% and First Citizens Bancshares Inc. (FCNCA) 14.2%.
However, I said that Eli Lilly shares were too expensive, “priced for near-perfection.” Yet they rose 50.1% on the strength of continue success in GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
Disclosure: Katharine Davidge, my wife and a portfolio manager at my firm, owns Lilly personally and for several of her clients.
John Dorfman is chairman of Dorfman Value Investments LLC in Boston, Massachusetts. He or his clients may own or trade securities discussed in this column. He can be reached at jdorfman@dorfmanvalue.com.