A fter a Springtime sell-off of Apple stock by Apple executives, the companyis honchos began buying stock again in August. TMO reported insider trading activity throughout the Spring, when Apple was trading at levels up to US$10 per share more than todayis US$14.50 levels. Appleis stock has been trading at those 52-week low levels since July.
According to a Reuters report, Apple executives began picking up Apple stock again in August. The report doesnit offer any details on Apple insider activity, but does offer details on wider tech insider activity:
Top U.S. executives bought more shares of their own companies in August than in the previous month and analysts say sentiment has turned bullish for the third straight month.
Insider buying in August rose to US$219 million, or 67 percent higher than in July, according to the latest monthly figures from Thomson Financial. The August seasonal spike in insider buying was expected, as that has been the case in each of the past 10 years, said the research firm.
August was the first month since January in which insider purchasing is higher than the five-year monthly average of US$215 million, said Lon Gerber, director of insider research at Thomson Financial.
At the same time, insider selling rose to US$1.4 billion in August from US$792 million in the previous month, but insiders "remain hesitant to unload shares as the sales volume remains well below its historic monthly average of US$2.6 billion," said Gerber.
In August, insider sentiment became more bullish in technology sector insider purchases jumping 240 percent from the previous month to US$63 million, about double its 5-year monthly average.
Tech selling rose to US$319 million in August from US$110 million in the previous month, but remains much lower than normal levels, said Gerber.
Tech buying occurred at Apple Computer Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc., and LSI Logic Corp.
A check of the registered insider activity at Yahoo!is financial site shows that Apple board member Arthur D. Levinson bought some 50,000 shares of AAPL on August 1st, at a price of from US$14.87 - US$14.90 per share. Other activity may have taken place since that time, while not yet showing up in the official SEC reports.
Appleis stock closed at 14.58, down 0.44 (-2.93%), on light volume of 3,638,988 shares trading hands.
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