Gaotu CEO Larry Chen Bought $758K of His Own Stock in a Week

The founder of a beaten down stock keeps buying

59,148 ADSs at about $2.42 per share, the third open market purchase by Gaotu’s CEO in roughly a week. That is what Chen Xiangdong, known as Larry Chen, the founder, chairman, and chief executive of Chinese education company Gaotu Techedu, reported in a Form 4 filed with the SEC on June 18, 2026. The buy was made indirectly through Ebetter International Group Limited, an entity tied to Chen.

Chen is not a passive board member topping up a token position. He founded the company, runs it, and has now stepped into the open market three times in about a week to buy $GOTU with his own capital while the stock sits down roughly a third for the year.

And this was not a one off. It was the third large open market buy in the span of days: 200,000 ADSs on June 12 at about $2.24 (roughly $447,000), 73,801 ADSs reported June 17 at about $2.28 (roughly $168,000), and 59,148 ADSs on June 18 at about $2.42 (roughly $143,000). That is 332,949 ADSs and close to $758,000 of fresh money in under a week.

What the filing actually says

NexusAlert flagged the filing as a high severity insider buy the same day it hit EDGAR, with five flags: insider buy, executive purchase, ceo purchase, large purchase, and ownership increase. Every line in the recent cluster is coded as an open market purchase, the kind an executive makes with their own cash rather than through an option exercise or a tax related disposal.

The ownership detail matters. The shares were bought indirectly through Ebetter International Group Limited, and Chen’s reported indirect stake climbed with each filing, reaching 7,788,330 ADSs after the June 17 purchase. One structural note for anyone reading the raw form: every three ADSs represent two Class A ordinary shares, so the ADS counts on the filing are the right unit to track here.

Is this a buy signal? The honest answer

Here is the tension. Gaotu is a Chinese ADR that has been cut down hard, with the stock off about a third year to date and a market value near $338 million. A founder buying a falling stock can be conviction, or it can be a person who is simply too close to see the risk. So which is it?

Classify the lines before you score them. This is not a tax withholding event, not a collar, and not a prescheduled plan sale dressed up as a purchase. These are discretionary open market buys, priced into a weak tape, by the person with the most complete picture of the business. That is the highest quality line item in the entire Form 4 universe.

It is worth being even handed about the rest of the picture. The selling that does exist in Gaotu’s recent insider record is small next to the buying, and the buying is concentrated in the founder. NexusAlert’s Investor Trends view sums it up: net buying of about $659,000 over the period, $758,000 bought against just $99,000 sold, across 11 transactions and 5 distinct reporting owners.

The misconception worth busting

A lot of investors treat any “buy” line on a filing as bullish and any “sell” line as bearish. The real signal lives one level down, in how the trade was executed. A purchase forced by an option exercise, or a sale that is really tax withholding at vesting, tells you almost nothing. A founder wiring cash into the open market at the going price, three times, while the stock is down, tells you considerably more.

One insider buy is noise. A founder buying his own stock three times in a week, in the open market, at depressed prices, is a pattern worth watching.

That does not make the stock a sure thing. Gaotu still has to convert revenue growth into durable profit, and a single insider’s conviction cannot underwrite an investment thesis on its own. But it does change the question from “why is this stock down” to “why is the person who knows it best adding here.”

What to watch and how to catch it

The thing to track now is whether the buying continues and whether it stays concentrated in Chen or broadens to other officers and directors. A lone founder is conviction. A widening cluster across the executive bench is a stronger tell. Either way, the only way to see it is to read each filing as it lands, not to wait for a headline that arrives days later, if at all.

That is the entire reason NexusAlert exists. The platform flagged this Form 4 as a high severity insider buy the day it hit EDGAR, classified the transaction type, summed the multi filing pattern in the Investor Trends view, and surfaced the ownership footnotes so you do not have to parse them yourself.

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Sources

• SEC EDGAR: Gaotu Techedu Inc. (CIK 0001768259) filings
• StockTitan: Gaotu Techedu CEO adds 73,801 ADSs via Ebetter International Group
• StockTitan: Gaotu Techedu CEO linked entity buys 200K ADS
• TipRanks: Top Executive Makes Bold New Bet on Gaotu Techedu Stock
• Moomoo: Gaotu Techedu insider bought shares worth $447,000