Continued falls in the value of Xstrata shares tempted director Claude Lamoureux to spend more than £50,000 on shares in the diversified miner.

He bought 5,000 shares at 1,093p a time, lifting his stake to 9,000 shares. Last month Lamoureux bought 4,000 at 1,378p.

Shares in Xstrata have slumped from levels above 4,000p as recently as June, in line with falling commodity prices. In October it reported higher production of coal, platinum and nickel, but suffered the effects of price falls.

Lamoureux, a Canadian, is also on the boards of Northumbrian Water and the Canadian food processor Maple Leaf Foods.

Elsewhere in the mining sector, Peter Hambro, founder and chairman of Peter Hambro Mining, topped up his stake in the Russia-focused gold miner, buying 40,000 shares at 213p a time. He now has about 5.3m shares, or 6.5% of the company. Shares in the firm, which mines gold in Siberia, have also fallen heavily over the past year.

They dropped sharply on Thursday after HSBC analyst Victor Flores cut the shares’ target price to 200p from 700p, saying that the company did not have sufficient reserves to support its production profile. The following day, the company’s shares rallied more than 15% to about 207p after it said there had been “potential misunderstandings of the company’s reserves and resources in recent market analysis”.

Directors have in-depth knowledge of their businesses so it can pay to track their moves. Every week Digitallook.com reveals the bosses who have bought or sold big stakes

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