Apple’s Chief Operating Office Jeff Williams and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri both dumped large amounts of AAPL stock this month — prompting speculation that those inside Apple aren’t confident that the share price is bouncing back to all-time high levels any time soon.
Although, as usual, such fears are almost certainly greatly exaggerated.
Williams sold 268,644 shares via a single direct transaction on March 22, netting a cool $28,720,730 in the process — which suggests a price per share of $106.91. Given that Williams sold 46,873 Apple common stock shares back in October 2015, that leaves him with just $326,774 worth of AAPL stock, based on yesterday’s closing price.
Maestri, meanwhile, sold 18,241 common stock shares on March 15 for a total of $1,895,605.
While execs selling Apple stock is always going to create speculation (especially when you’re dealing with an almost $29 million payday like Williams received), it’s worth noting that AAPL shares have continued to show an overall climb of the past five years. There’s also a good argument to be made that AAPL is massively undervalued as tech stock given Apple’s massive cash pile.
In other words, it’s probably a bit too soon to add more doom predictions to the Apple Death Knell Counter.
(For the record, I don’t hold any Apple stock. Although I’ll email Jeff Williams my PayPal address if he’s interested.)
Source: Country Caller
