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Luminar’s Iris integrated into the roofline of a passenger vehicle.
Courtesy of Luminar/Business Wire
Luminar Technologies
stock has fallen sharply this year, but director Matthew Simoncini recently bought a large block of shares of the developer of technology to enable self-driving cars.
Luminar (ticker: LAZR) stock has tumbled about 40% so far this year, compared with a 16% rise in the S&P 500 index. Luminar shares went public after the company merged with a special-purpose acquisition company in December. The company makes so-called lidar sensors that use lasers to measure the surroundings of autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year, Luminar’s Mexico plant began producing samples of its sensors, and the plant could make them on a commercial scale by the end of 2022. Wall Street seems upbeat on the technology.
On July 2, Simoncini paid $500,000 for 22,727 Luminar shares, a per share average price of $22 each. According to a form he filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Simoncini now owns the equivalent of 31,833 Luminar shares, including restricted stock units acquired from his service as a director.
Luminar said that Simoncini, a former CEO of automotive-technology firm
Lear
(LEA), wasn’t available for comment. Luminar said his stock purchase shows “continued support for the company.” Simoncini joined the Luminar board in December.
On June 25, Baird analyst Tristan Gerra upgraded Luminar stock to Outperform from Neutral and lifted the target price to $30 from $22. Shares are “poised to outperform peers this year, as Luminar is well positioned to upward-revise its order book,” Gerra wrote.
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.