This ETF from a 106-Year-Old Company Outperforms Rivals Without ‘Magnificent Seven’ Stocks

MarketWatch highlighted an intriguing ETF on Monday—the Tweedy Brown Insider + Value ETF (COPY), which debuted in late 2024. It intriguingly skips over the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks while still managing to outperform its peers.

Actively managed ETFs focus on a few key principles: they look for undervalued stocks, insider buying, and opportunistic share buybacks.

The Tweedy Brown team behind the COPY ETF carefully selects stocks from companies where insiders (like officers, directors, or major shareholders) are investing their own money. They pay attention to companies also buying back their shares at favorable prices, utilizing Tweedy Brown’s valuation insights, as detailed by MarketWatch contributor Philip Van Doorn.

Van Doorn mentions that the fund employs “more than 30 different investment characteristics” to identify stocks that may be undervalued or trading below their intrinsic worth.

Now, I’ve often said that many U.S. firms don’t handle stock buybacks very well. They either stick to a predetermined repurchase plan indiscriminately or buy shares sporadically, often when prices are inflated—buying high rather than low, which seems counterintuitive.

Warren Buffett notes that it’s tough to accurately define a stock’s intrinsic value. Yet, savvy investors tend to know when a stock is overpriced—often indicated by insider selling—and when it’s undervalued based on increased insider buying.

Currently, the COPY ETF is comprised of 180 stocks, with their weights varying from 1.97% to 0.11%. Interestingly, 12 of these stocks exhibited unusual activity in options trading just yesterday.

From that list, I’ve picked two stocks that might be promising for your portfolio.

Devon Energy (DVN)

While many are banking on oil and gas firms to revamp Venezuela’s struggling energy sector, Devon Energy remains focused mainly on its U.S. drilling operations.

In the last year, DVN’s stock has barely budged, appreciating less than 1%. In contrast, Chevron (CVX)—the only U.S. company currently operating in Venezuela—saw a 4.6% increase over the same period.

Analysts have a favorable outlook on Devon stock. Out of 30 analysts, 24 have assigned it a Buy rating (scoring 4.53 out of 5), with a 12-month target price of $45.86, which is about 30% higher than where it is right now.

With West Texas Intermediate oil priced at $57 per barrel, Devon is projected to earn $4.04 per share in 2025. Its current stock trades at 8.7 times this forecast. Although that’s higher than the 2023 ratio of about 6 times, it still reflects a historically attractive level.

The last confirmed insider purchase happened when CEO Richard Muncrief acquired 15,000 shares in March 2024 at an average cost of $44.42. He hasn’t made any purchases in 2025 so far, which, I suppose, isn’t overly encouraging.

On the other hand, the company has been aggressive with its buybacks. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, they repurchased 92.68 million shares from early 2021 until September 30, averaging around $44.70 per share.

Share repurchases accelerated from 2024 into early 2025. In fact, so far in 2025, they bought back 23,695,000 shares—which is just slightly fewer shares than repurchased in all of 2024 but for about $200 million less in cost. Pretty significant, I’d say.

From yesterday’s active options, I’m particularly interested in two:

The details for these are for Long Strangle materials. At the time of writing late Thursday morning, the costs are:

This strategy involves buying a call option and a cheaper put option that expire on the same date (which, in this case, is about a week from now). The total cost for the long strangle is $67, under 2% of the current stock price. If the stock price at expiration is over $36.67 or below $32.83, there’s potential for profit. The maximum loss would be the net debit amount of $67.

ConocoPhillips (COP)

ConocoPhillips is another player that could meet with President Trump soon to discuss oil, especially related to Venezuela. The company has lodged a $12 billion claim against Venezuela for assets seized two decades ago.

Major U.S. oil firms, including COP, might be hesitant to invest heavily now since oil prices remain low, compounded by a politically charged atmosphere that’s far from settled. That should make for a pretty tense meeting.

I’m not particularly fond of ExxonMobil (XOM). It seems like ConocoPhillips, similar to its peers, must be finding it frustrating that funding commitments have been made without a clear roadmap in sight. It’s what you might call a bit of a mess.

Over the past year, COP’s stock has outperformed Devon slightly, gaining nearly 3%, yet still lags behind the S&P 500 and remains around 28% off its three-year peak of $135.18 from April 2024.

Analysts, however, like COP stock. Of 28 analysts, 21 have it rated as a Buy (scoring 4.36 out of 5), with a 12-month target price of $111.78—about 15% higher than its current valuation.

ConocoPhillips is expected to earn $6.56 per share in 2025, which suggests a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.9. While it’s not as low as Devon’s expectations, it’s still pretty appealing—especially if there’s assurance that Venezuela will honor the $12 billion claim from its near-term oil production. But, you know, that’s quite a big ‘if.’

As far as I know, CEO Ryan Lance hasn’t purchased COP stock on the open market since taking the helm in 2012. That’s perhaps a little concerning.

The current buyback program has been underway since 2016, and it was recently expanded to $65 billion in October 2024. Up to now, ConocoPhillips has repurchased 474.8 million shares for a total of $38.3 billion, with an average cost of $80.67 per share. Considering the stock price has remained above this threshold since November 2021, the return on buybacks is decent, if not outstanding.

Here are the options that saw unusual activity yesterday:

Both of these puts are deep in the money. So instead of selling to generate income, you’re essentially setting yourself up for a favorable entry point into owning the stock. The break-even prices for the $120 and $130 strikes sit at $96.20.

Both predictably seem surprising. However, the anticipated 3.08% might be too low if the White House’s plans for Venezuelan oil become clear soon. Investors seem hopeful for good news, as COP stock rose nearly 5% today.