Insiders are buying shares in these companies, including the ASX itself

You can read a lot about what businesses short sellers are betting on falling, but not much about when directors are buying shares in the businesses they run. 

After all, directors and insiders can sell shares for many reasons, but should only really buy for one reason, because they think the shares will go up. 

A board member, chief executive or founder should have a better idea than anyone as to whether their stock is a good buy, or not, so let's take a look at a few directors that have bought recently. 

For this wire, I filtered out anyone buying smallish amounts, and only used directors as deliberately buying on-market, rather than being awarded share options for example. 

ASX insiders are buying 

The first company that struck me using the Market Index director transactions' page is the stock exchange operator itself the ASX Ltd (ASX: ASX).

If there's any company where the board should be familiar with the ways of the share market and what represents good value it's the stock exchange itself. 

We also know sentiment is very weak around the ASX at the moment given all its operational problems, with short sellers even betting on shares falling more. 

So it's encouraging to see, not one, but three separate directors stepped up to the plate in August. 

ASX director David Clarke bought 4,000 shares on market worth around $254,000. 

ASX director Anne Loveridge bought 2,700 shares on market worth $169,431

On August 15, ASX director Wayne Byers bought a net 500 shares on market worth around $31,000

That's around $454,000 of their own money that the board has committed to new ASX shares between August 15 and 22. The stock was trading around $62 or $63 last week and is down around 5% over the last six months. 

This is a tricky one to call, but investors should take confidence from the insider buying. 

HMC Capital

HMC Ltd (ASX: HMC) is an alternative asset manager that plays in the private equity, private credit, and real estate investment space. As such, market confidence and image are important to the valuation. This likely explains why its founder and chief executive, David Di Pilla, just bought a whopping 1.34 million shares on the market worth just over $5 million.

Di Pilla likely wants to show the market and investors he's confident the stock is cheap, with the business and its underlying investments in rude health. There's no better way of doing that than adding to an already big shareholding. 

HMC shares are down 52.2% over the past year, although it seems Di Pilla thinks the market has this one wrong. 

OFX Ltd 

Patricia Cross, the chairwoman and non-executive director of international money transfer group OFX Ltd (ASX: OFX), just bought 100,000 shares on the market on August 22 for $82,370 and now holds 437,077 shares in total. 

It's always great to see insiders buying, but looking at OFX's performance for its first quarter of FY 2026, you get an idea why shares have slumped 60.3% year to date. 

Over the quarter, OFX's active clients declined an alarming 7.6% on the prior corresponding quarter (pcq), with net operating income also down 3% versus the pcq. 

I have a feeling OFX may be facing some stiff competition from the likes of British start-up Wise PLC. 

Foreign exchange is largely a volume and margin (FX spread) game, and Wise's mission to lower spreads for customers is likely to put pressure on the entire industry. 

I've also previously covered the commission system for staff at OFX, as disclosed in its Financial Services Guide (FSG). It's not something I am especially keen on as an investor, or potential customer. 

As such, I probably wouldn't buy OFX shares myself, but the chairwoman's bullishness is fantastic.