SoFi Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Anthony Noto continued his buying spree, adding another $240,000 in value to the financial-technology company’s stock on Thursday amid pressure from banking names.
Noto bought 45,000 shares of SoFi SOFI,
at an average price of $5.3936 on Thursday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The purchase builds on a $995,000 stock purchase that Noto made on March 10 as SoFi’s stock plunged shortly after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. He bought 180,000 shares at an average price of $5.5283.
Read more: SoFi CEO Noto buys ‘opportunistic’ million-dollar shares as SVB crisis fuels sales
SoFi shares closed at $6.47 on March 8 — the last trading session before news of the Silicon Valley bank’s troubles spooked investors in the financial sector.
Twitter, Goldman Sachs and National Football League veteran Noto were also big buyers of SoFi’s stock in December. That month, he bought $7.4 million in stock at a price south of $4.60 per share. SoFi’s stock closed at $7.72 in early February.
SoFi’s stock was trading at $5.42 in Friday morning action.
Noto’s purchase comes amid SVB declines as executives and insiders at other financial firms buy up their beaten-down shares. Ben Silverman, who tracks insider buying and selling as director of research at VerityData, told MarketWatch on Thursday that he’s seen purchases in more than 100 companies recently, primarily small and medium-sized regional banks.
Some big-name insiders have also gotten in on the action. Charles Schwab Corp. SCHW,
Chief Executive Walter Bettinger and a group of other executives and board members of the financial company spent about $7 million on stock purchases this week.
and a board member of Fifth Third Bancorp FITB,
Purchased $1.27 million of the Cincinnati-based banking-services company’s stock on March 13.