When researching stocks to buy, or sell, investors would do well to heed the trading patterns of a company’s insiders, the directors and key employees. After all, if they don’t know how their own company is performing who will? Here we look at a few stocks for which I have seen buying by insiders, and discuss whether I think investors should do likewise:

Taser International Inc (TASR): Shares are trading at $4.28 at the time of writing, in the middle of its 52-week trading range of $3.55 to $5.10. At the current market price, the company is capitalized at $254.65 million. Earnings per share for the last year were a negative $0.08, and the company paid no dividend.

The weight of insider trades has been heavily on the sell side since 2004, when the share price was an adjusted $29. But recently, director Partovi Hadi has bought more than 39,000 shares at an average price of around $4.29. Could this decline indicate the bottoming of share price?

Taser is best known for its popular electronic control devices that are used by law enforcement agencies around the world. However, it profits have seriously lagged its promise since it came to the market in 2004. Its products have been directly responsible for 12 deaths, and the company has been sued over 170 times. This poor record may be about to change, however, and its profits increase as sales of its latest product increase.

The Axon is a tiny camera that Police Officers wear on a headband, and which records events.