Rocket Companies (RKT) – with several insider buys this past month from its CEO and a director. During the month of June, the CEO increased his stake from 2.6M shares to near 2.2M shares buying between prices of $6.50 and $8.71 in that timeframe. More than $4.2M of stock purchases for the month. This continued the trend of buying since April as the stock has corrected lower with market weakness. Since early April the CEO has nearly doubled his shares owned. The stock is under $10 so it does not see a lot of options action but has seen mixed flows with recent buys in August $12 puts for $2.3M as well as opening put sales in January $6 puts still in OI. The stock has corrected sharply this year after being a popular meme stock in 2021 while housing and mortgage related stocks prospered. The stock hit a low of $6.27 in June and has since rebounded back to near 8 as interest rates seem to have peaked for the short term. The stock has potential to snapback towards its YTD VWAP near 10.20 on a recovery in the mortgage sector if yields continue to move lower this summer. The $15B company trades at 9.5x earnings, 2.1x sales, and 1.6x book value with FY23 expected to grow revenues +1% after a rough 2022 and FY24 estimates at +17.2%. RKT is a financial tech company consisting of tech-driven real estate, mortgage, and financial service businesses. Its segments include Direct to Consumer and Partner Network. Its Direct-to-Consumer segment consists of performance marketing and direct engagement through its Rocket Mortgage application. Its Partner Network segment includes partnerships with premier consumer-focused organizations, brokers and mortgage professionals who leverage its platform and scale to provide mortgage solutions to their clients. Many estimates have come down for RKT due to surging interest rates but a lot of that possibly priced in at this point. Average analyst target is at $11 with a Street high at $18. May, Keefe Bruyette upgraded the stock to Market Perform but lowered their target to $7 citing valuation but also saying while operating trends remain challenging, large originators, including Rocket, are moderating growth expectations. This should provide some support for gain-on-sale margins but adds it will require that companies make hard decisions in terms of cutting capacity. Short interest is high at 27.4%. Hedge fund ownership rose 6% last quarter.