Last month’s microcap insider buys all but bucked the market meltdown, losing an average of only 0.69% from the time the list was published through today, versus losses of 6.44% in the SPY (S&P 500 ETF) and 7.80% in the IWM (Russell 2000 ETF). So what microcap stocks were insiders and 10%+ owners buying in December?

1. Synalloy [[SYNL]]: Director Murray Wright bought 25,000 shares in December, an investment exceeding $400,000. These were Wright’s first purchases since selling 35,000 shares at over $40 last year. Like Wright, I am long Synalloy.
2. Torch Energy Royalty Trust [[TRU]]: Robert O’ Shea’s Trust Ventures just keeps buying TRU shares ahead of the liquidation vote. O’Shea, who has obviously crunched the numbers, must believe that a dissolution will yield substantially more than current prices.
3. Comsys IT Partners [[CITP]]: Texas investor Geoffrey Raynor increased his investment in Comsys, an IT staffing company, purchasing over 500,000 shares in December. Oops! CITP shares lost over 15% in the first week of 2008.
4. Georgia Gulf [[GGC]]: Do you think only retail investors are guilty of doubling down? Look no further than Georgia Gulf, where Rodger Krouse’s Sun Capital funds increased their underwater bet by over a million dollars in December.
5. Crescent Banking Co. [[CSNT]]: Director Michael Lowe bought over $2 million worth of this Georgia bank holding company in December. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, he now owns over a quarter of outstanding shares.
6. XCorporeal [[XCR]]: A fund controlled by director Marc Cummins bought over 100,000 shares in December. XCorporeal is a medical device company developing a “wearable kidney.” Why can’t they just call it portable dialysis?

Track the performance of this portfolio on Stockpickr.

DISCLOSURE: Long SYNL as of Jan. 7. No position in other stocks mentioned.

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