There have been four incidences of insider selling at Apple in the last two weeks (check out our full report on this subject).

What do you think it means? Is there anything to worry about, or, as I personally suspect, is this just a situation where Apple's stock has been in a holding pattern for so long that some of Apple's execs decided it was time to take home a little cash?

I find it somewhat alarming that three different Apple execs have abruptly decided to sell stock in the past few days. If they were just trying to pick up some cash, I don't know why they would all sell at the same time.

At any rate, it doesn't bode well for the short-term growth of AAPL.

What if, and this is sheer conjecture, Steve asked his team to not sell any shares for X amount of time, and that time is now up?

That would be an explanation that would relax me. It is, after all, highly unusual that there were so few inside-sells during the last several years.

That is plausible. Or could it be that all of Apple's execs were recently awarded, say, 150,000 shares, and some of them have just chosen to convert them to cash?

With Timothy Cook's recent filing to sell a whopping 310,000 shares, I am beginning to wonder just what is going on.

Often times the time window in which senior executives can excercise options and sell shares is very short. Also, one must consider the vesting schedule, if any, that applies to the shares.

It would make sense that more than one excutive is choosing to sell shares at the same time, depending on the time window available, the vesting schedule and personal desires to diversify assets and /or make use of the proceeds to cover the costs of the business of life.

Personally, I don't read anything into these announcements.

Robert

These 'full-disclosure' filings are one thing, but do we know if / when the actual stock sales occurred?

Maybe it's just my Pollyanna heart , but could it be (in part) that AAPL management is confident of an upcoming upswing in AAPL stock, and are announcing their intentions now so they'll be ready to sell then?

An upswing, like, from a PowerMac makeover, like the makeovers the rest of Apple's products have undergone in the last 18 months?

There is an interesting article about this in San Jose Mercury News:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/3344528.htm

It contains also a quote from Steven Jobs:

Quote

``A major part of Apple's senior management compensation is based on stock options. It's great to see some members of our management team get rewarded for their incredibly hard work by selling a bit of their stock,'' Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said in a statement released by the company.

Well, well, well... Apple has issued an earnings warning after this round of insider selling. I don't like it, and I think the company is going to get slammed for this. Specifically, I would be stunned if there isn't a round or two of investor lawsuits.

I don't know about that. It's only been a month since we started talking about insiders filing to sell, and do we know how much time there must be between filing the forms and actually selling? As I understand it, those reports were at the time of having to file some form with the SEC, and that there's a period of time between that and when they can actually sell. If so, the two are much less connected than you might think. I could be wrong, though......

Maybe CrazyOne is right, but to people who don't know a whole lot about these procedures (me included) it looks like some people at Apple knew that the stock was going to take a plunge when they announced a warning and sold their stock before the news came out.

I'm not saying it IS like that, but it just looks like that, and that's why Bryan may be right when he says it's a bad thing.

I dont think there will be much substance for any sort of "insider trading" lawsuits. These execs quite openly let us all know they were selling lots of stock, we've all had a chance to take the hint and sell our own if we were worried. It's not exactly a surprise that AAPL earnings are soft this quarter, *and* they're still making a profit, which puts them ahead of most other tech companies.

Personally, I stay away from buying AAPL shares, the company is great and has wonderful products, but the markets seem to hate Apple. When there are good announcements, the stock drops. When there are bad announcements, the stock *really* drops. (what's up with that?) Then you wait for the slow climb back up until the next announcement.

Fear and greed are the only forces driving the modern stock exchanges, if you dont like it, try real estate.

[/b]

So, has anybody else ever heard of a "Come to Jesus" meeting? it happens a lot in turnaround situations, and the most common form of it is that executives are asked to put their money where their mouth is: In publicly held companies that usually means a gentleman's agreement to keep any money they have which is invested in the company right where it is until the company's situation improves.

Perception is a huge part of being a publicly held company (as this whole forum amply demonstrates). If executives sell, people worry. So, keeping your money in your own company was seen as a sign of faith.

That all changed with Enron. Suddenly, keeping your money in the same basket as your job was risky. But the public perception of selling was still there.

Look at Apple execs at the beginning of this turnaround. Tech market was still good, but Apple was weak. A CTJ meeting was entirely likely.

Now, the tech market is shakey, and keeping all your money in your own company is not only risky, it's suspicious. But selling is still seen as a lack of faith. If they've held on to their Apple stock, there's no graceful way to get rid of it, even though prevailing market wisdom says they should.

My guess is that the terms of this threoretical CTJ meeting were met with Apple's recent successes. The execs were notified that they were free to diversify, but do it carefully. Guess what: people rarely discuss their personal finances, and are rarely able to schedule them to accommodate other individuals. And the pressure from the market to diversify from tech holdings is stronger than ever. So it selloffs happen and seem to be some huge conspiracy?

Sorry, folks, I don't buy it. The ones yesterday were maybe a little suspicious because of timing, but everything before then? Nah. It's people doing what's best for them in a very different market than most people think about.

These folks have come to realize, as I have, that AAPL stock is sensitive to wall street analysts and media bias. Take a look at yesterdays MSNBC story on warnings. They managed to lump AMD in with Apple. Only problem is that AMD was reporting a loss and Apple reported a profit of 8-10 cents instead of 11 cents. It's ridiculous! Did this affect AMD stock as much as AAPL? Nooooooo! AMD was down 10.87% and AAPL down 12.90% at the time of this post. Is this fair? Of course not, but the stupid wintel biased media an analysts spread the FUD unfairly against a profitable company to investors. AAPl stock should be somewhere between 25-30, not in the teens! This has happened time and time again. I think the SEC and FTC should investigate the brokerage houses and media dipsticks that have a vested interest in non-AAPL stock.

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
...but the markets seem to hate Apple. When there are good announcements, the stock drops. When there are bad announcements, the stock *really* drops.

True, very true.

I cant believe what suckers you'all are. Get real. When someone kicks you in the teeth, the proper response is not "gee, I guess he had a bad day". If Apple could extract more money from your wallet, they would. THey do the best they can aat this, and only the fact that wintel PC's cost 30-50% less keeps them in line. THey are just as greedy a lot as any other company, and the fact that apple holds 4% of the market despite producing a superior product reflects that level of greed over the last 15 YEARS. I love my ibook, but I would never apologize for the intentions of someone who is abusing me. In this case, if the timing of selling by Apple execs is coincident with the recent positive announcements, and is prior to the earnings warning, lawsuits would be just the ticket. It is the job of APPLE to make a superior job at a competitive price, and it is not your job to be a forever faithful cheerleader. BTW I do not own any apple stock.

I understand that hey have to give 60 days notice before they sell. Is this true? Have all these shares been sold?

These are key issues that have not been spelled out here, and I do not know myself.

Sincerely,
Dr. L

I have no doubt that there will be investor lawsuits and/or an SEC investigation. All of this insider selling combined with this earnings warning is a total red flag.

If you have followed Apple stock you know that stock price rises as MacWorld approaches and then drops slightly afterward. If Apple was set to release any blockbuster products at MacWorld NY, then these execs would have held their shares a little longer. Obviously, they have an inside track as to what is coming down the pipeline and the earnings/product outlook must have appeared rather disappointing.

I hope these insiders are planning to set aside some cash for the impending lawsuits.

well what an interesting thread so far, so i figured id better join and post. im not sure how many of you own apple stock but i for one do and w/ jaguar coming, the upgraded powerschool program, xserve, mwny, and not to mention apple acquiring both nothing real and silicon grail you'd figure our stocks would be a little better, but oh well i read somewhere that needham & co. are giving apple a strong buy rating, and then about 3 other firms giving them a not so good rating, whats up with that. well thanks for letting me release some steam.

oh yeah im not listing the ad campaign because its not that good.


aloha

If I had any extra cash, I would consider right now a buying opportunity for AAPL.

(standard disclaimers, etc etc. )