Barnes & Noble (BKS - option chain) shares have been moving sharply higher for the past few days and are continuing that trend today. Company insider and billionaire investor Ronald Burkle reported purchasing more than 4.4 million shares of BKS in the past week alone, valued at $90.2M. When a major holder makes a big purchase like that, it is often a sign of good things to come for that stock, if only because other investors may follow his lead. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on BKS.

BKS opened this morning at $21.00. So far today the stock has hit a low of $20.86 and a high of $21.55. As of 12:30, BKS is trading at $21.43 up 93 cents (4.5%). The chart for BKS looks bearish and S&P gives BKS a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

"Citigroup (NYSE: C) used to be the world's #1 bank; it is now ranked #15 after the financial crisis," points out long-standing investing and trading expert Mark Skousen.

Yet, in his premium Hedge Fund Trader service, the leading advisor ranks the bank as a speculative buy. Here's his review.

"The stock fell to $1 a share from $40 a share two years ago. But now Citigroup is showing some breathing room after selling Smith Barney to Morgan Stanley for $6.7 billion and pushing revenues up to $34 billion.

"The CEO of Target (NYSE: TGT) has purchased $4.6 million in shares of the discount retailer, and we're going to follow suit," says Bill Martin in his BullMarket.com advisory.

"Chief Executive Officer Gregg Steinhafel purchased 150K shares at $30.54 on March 18th. On the same day, he also acquired 78K shares at $31.58 for his 401(k) plan in what appears to have been an automated transaction.

"Following the transactions Steinhafel now holds 555.8K shares, exercisable options on 727.7K shares at $34.00 to $58.13, and unexercisable options on 600.9K shares at $48.16 and $58.13.

"Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU), the largest private market coal firm in the world, had a great 2008," says Jack Adamo who has recently added the stock to the buy list of Insiders Plus.

"Peabody has extensive holdings in the U.S. and Australia, the latter serving the China/Asia Pacific markets. It sells steam coal for heating and utility use, and coking coal for steel making.

"Peabody has had some decent iInsider buying in the last few months -- about 30,000 shares -- not enough to get too excited about, but encouraging. There were also 27,000 options exercised, most of it at very low prices, for which the holder took no profits.

"That's also a good sign, particularly since those exercises come with a tax bill, and shares weren't sold to pay it. It implies faith the stock will rise.

Investors who look to insider sentiment as a sign of when to buy stocks will be sorely disappointed with the latest news on insider trading: Over the past 90 days, insiders at U.S. companies have bought $670.2 million worth of stock while dumping $2.8 billion on the market. In the last 60 trading days of 2008, insider buying was down by about 16% over the previous year. That sounds bad, but it actually buys a larger chunk of a stock market that's down more than 30%. So you could actually make the case that insider buying is up!

Matt Krantz reports that the reason for the less-than-enthusiastic insider buying could be driven by the weakening balance sheets of the executives themselves. While CEO compensation certainly hasn't declined along with the market, the value of executives' portfolios has tanked. "Some CEOs face tax bills on shares they received as compensation," the USA Today reports -- even though those shares may not be worth as much as they were when the taxes were calculated.

"Last spring, CEO Leonard Riggio of Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) purchased almost $50 million-worth of his company's stock between $27-29.50; today, it languishes on the remainder table at $17.56," says Mark Skousen.

In his income-oriented speciality service, High Income Alert, the advisor says, "Now, a billionaire has also taken a stake." Here's the advisor's update.

"Barnes & Noble is a worthy addition to our model portfolio. Trading well below the level that the CEO purchased shares, we consider the stock a bargain.

"Barnes & Noble owns the nation's largest chain of bookstores, with 800 stores in 50 states. It also owns one of the Web's most-visited Web sites, bn.com. Between its stores and Web site, Barnes and Noble sells more than 300 million books a year.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) shares are lower today, dragged down by the overall market. However, it has been reported that CEO Vikram Pandit and another big shot at C have recently purchased a combined one million shares of the bank's stock. These guys may just be making a big show of confidence, but it is still roughly $9M on the line in these transactions. If you think that insider buying means the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on C.

C opened this morning at $9.76. So far today the stock has hit a low of $8.79 and a high of $10.11. As of 1:55, C is trading at $9.19, down 0.26 (-2.8%). The chart for C looks bearish and S&P gives C a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a December bull-put credit spread below the $5 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 10.1% return in just five weeks as long as C is above $5 at December expiration. Citi would have to fall by more than 45% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

C hasn't been below $8 at all in the past year and has shown support around $8.25 recently.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in C.

"The CEO of McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) is bullish on his own stock; he recently bought $1.1 million in shares," says trading and investing expert Bill Martin in BullMarket.com.

"On October 23, CEO Jim Skinner purchased 20,000 shares at $55.00, increasing his holdings to 236,700 shares. The buy was the first for Skinner in at least five years. "Under the terms of McDonald's stock ownership guidelines, Skinner is expected to hold 6 times his annual base salary in shares, or $7.65 million in stock.

"He exceeded the ownership guidelines prior to his recent purchase and presently owns more than $12.55 million in shares, excluding unvested restricted stock, phantom stock, and options.

"Excluding dividends, shares of McDonald's have risen nearly 90% during Skinner's approximately four-year tenure at the helm, no small feat considering they rose just 2% in the preceding four years and 43% in the preceding eight years.

Wachovia Corp. (NYSE: WB - option chain) shares are falling today with most other financial stocks, but we uncovered some interesting insider activity from this week. On Monday, a director at WB bought one million shares for $11.00. This cost him $11 million and could be interpreted as a sign that the stock is probably not going to go away any time soon. However, it is also a good idea to note that the same director bought 500,000 shares last winter at $38, so he may also just be averaging his position downwards. Either way, if you think that the stock won't fall by too much more in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on WB, since the put premiums will be high today.

WB opened this morning at $10.44. So far today the stock has hit a low of $8.50 and a high of $10.91. As of 12:55, WB is trading at $9.55, down $1.96 (17.0%). The chart for WB looks bearish and S&P gives the stock a 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an October bull-put credit spread below the $5 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 39.9% return in just one month as long as WB is above $5 at October expiration. Wachovia would have to fall by more than 47% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

"Stericycle (NASDAQ SRCL) is a near-monopoly in an essential but unglamorous area, making its an excellent investment in an uncertain economy," says growth stock expert Dave Dyer.

In his Dave Dyer's Newsletter, he states, "If you have something that is dangerous, contaminated, or nasty, and you want it to go away safely, you can rely on SRCL, the leader in medical waste."

"I first recommended the stock almost a year ago, but there is so much good news that I thought this would be a good time to recommend it again.

"And while the stock's 12.4% gain since last August is not spectacular, the S&P 500 is down 14.1% over the same time period -- so SRCL has outperformed the market by a wide margin.

"SRCL is North America's largest provider of medical waste services. In fact, if a major customer wants to contract with a single customer for nationwide services, SRCL is the only choice. Even if the market has not really bottomed out, this is an excellent stock to consider because its business is almost entirely immune to economic cycles.

If you ask me, General Electric (NYSE: GE) is being priced as if the Cloverfield monster will be attacking Wall Street any day now. Thank goodness that an insider apparently thinks that GE is a great buy at these levels.

According to the AP, vice chairman Michael A. Neal purchased 35,000 shares this past Wednesday. The price? $29.99 per share. Not bad. At $29.99, GE's stock sports a nice, juicy dividend yield of 4.1%. I was pretty happy when I read this piece of news because, frankly, I've been wrong about GE. As I wrote recently, I thought GE would have been trending higher by now. The exact opposite has happened. So, it's kind of cool that an insider is buying. Of course, I'm not naive or utterly seduced by insider transactions. They are definitely important enough to keep tabs on, but let's face it, GE is in a vicious downtrend, and I understand that the stock might be haunting these levels for a while to come. The economy and the markets are, to understate the fact, somewhat spastic these days.

Here's another thing about the GE story I find incredibly interesting. A Bloomberg article says that GE's shares haven't existed with a dividend yield over 4% since 1984. That's more than 20 years ago. Again, there's nothing in the rulebook that says Wall Street institutions have to start buying now just because of GE's super-income story. As far as I'm concerned, though, GE's stock has to be in a good position. The insider buying may or may not help, but that yield is objective, attractive, and certainly sustainable. I'll continue to hold my GE trade, no matter what the technicals may tell me.

Disclosure: I own GE; positions can change at any time.

"The boom in natural gas prices has been good for North American producers and their investors, both of which continue to be upbeat on the sector as share prices also keep rising," says Bill Martin.

In his exceptional BullMarket.com, he looks at SandRidge Energy (NYSE: SD), where its billionaire CEO as well as a director have continued to buy shares, despite the stock trading near "peak levels."

"Oklahoma City-based SandRidge focuses on the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas in the West Texas Overthrust, East Texas, and Mid-Continent (Oklahoma) regions.

"President, and CEO Tom Ward purchased 460,000 shares at $48.95 on May 19th/20th, which increased his already substantial holdings to nearly 36.95 million shares, or a 25.27% stake.

"It was the first purchase for Ward since he announced in March his attention to buy up to $100 million in stock on the open market this year. His only other open-market purchase came in November 2007, when he took down 4.17 million shares at $26.00 in the company's initial public offering.

MBIA (NYSE: MBI) executives recently slashed in half the price they will be paying for shares in the company's recapitalization, but bullish observers are still pointing to their token investments as signs of confidence in the company's future.

The Wall Street Journal's Inside Track column (subscription required) gives investors good reason to be skeptical of these deals -- which appear to me to be little more than publicity stunts where the investments made by executives represent a pittance compared to the compensation they have extracted from the company's shareholders in spite of scandalously horrendous performance.

Here's the thing: Jim Cramer has said frequently that insider selling happens all the time for many different reasons, but insiders buy for only one reason: they think their stock is going higher.

"When it comes to sentiment indicators, one of my favorites is insider buying," says Mike Burnick, editor of Global Market Investor.

The advisor is intrigued by insider buying in the financial sector -- particularly among regional banking stocks. He explains, "The insiders are buying with both hands. Now's the time to go long." Here, he looks at the KBW Regional Bank Index ETF (ASE: KRE).

"U.S. corporate insiders are now buying more of their own shares than they're selling for the first time since 1995. Nearly 2,000 insiders at NYSE listed companies are snapping up shares - while total buys beat out sells by 1.44 times.

"There are many reasons to sell, but there's really only one reason to open your wallet and buy stock... you think it's dirt-cheap and likely headed much higher in price.

"This insider buying is taking place all across corporate America, but it's especially significant in the beaten-down banking sector. Stock buying by insiders at banks, consumer lenders and insurers in the S&P 500 index jumped recently to the highest level in 12 years.

In my day job as an analyst, I hear time and time again the conspiracy theorists, claiming that "the big guys" are out to get us, making it impossible to make money in the market. While insider buying is a good divining stick when analyzing companies, the idea that the institutions and insiders are just sitting, crouching in waiting, to sucker us into making investments decisions just to swipe our money is ludicrous.

While there are certainly cases of misdeed or asymmetrical information, this is not the case. Playing fields are generally level for all parties. That's what the SEC, FINRA and many governing bodies are there for -- to protect investors.

So, I find it interesting to read, on a couple of accounts, about Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee sprinter making a go at qualifying for the 2008 Olympics in China. The NY Times ran a story today that cites that the amazing sprinter may hold an unfair advantage with his prosthetics and may subsequently be disallowed to compete.