GigaOM » Apple stock

Apple institutes stock-holding rule for CEO, directors, executives

Erica Ogg — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:45:14 +0000

There’s a new rule at Apple: if you’re an executive or board member, you’re not allowed to let your holdings of Apple shares get below a certain threshold. The company recently instituted new requirements that CEO Tim Cook has to hold stock worth 10 times his base salary, that other executives hold three times their base salary, and that members of the board of directors who are not Apple employees keep Apple stock worth five times their annual retainer, according to new company stock ownership guidelines published in February.

Cook’s annual base salary is $1.4 million; which means he’ll be required to keep a minimum of $14 million in stock as long as he’s chief executive. Apple’s proxy statement identifies the following as “executive officers”: SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, SVP of Technologies Bob Mansfield, CFO Peter Oppenheimer, SVP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio, SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller, General Counsel Bruce Sewell and SVP of Operations Jeffrey Williams.

The timing of the rule change is interesting because it came right before Apple shareholders voted down a broader proposal earlier this week that would have required Apple senior executives — as opposed to executive officers — to keep a certain amount of company stock on hand. And it comes in the midst of a six-month-long stock slide from just above $700 to around $430.

Apple’s stock has been slipping, and while he never comments on the stock price, Cook actually told investors at the annual meeting that he “didn’t like” Apple’s falling share price.

The new rule’s insinuation is that Apple must prove its executives are as invested in Apple’s stock value — and by extension the future of the company — as the rest of the investors who own stock in the company. Which seems unnecessary and odd. If anything, Cook’s been remarkably sensitive to shareholders’ concerns — far more than his predecessor, between reinstating Apple’s dividend last year, to public promises to consider schemes cooked up by publicity-hungry hedge fund managers. But it’s extremely unlikely that being personally sensitive to the stock price is going to somehow change what Apple executives are doing on a regular basis right now.

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After stock slide, Apple no longer world’s most valuable public company

Erica Ogg — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:55:40 +0000

As investors continue to punish Apple stock — even after the company posted its best revenues and profits ever on Wednesday — Apple’s run as the world’s most valuable publicly held company has come to an end. Exxon Mobil’s market cap hit $416.1 billion Friday morning, as Apple’s slipped to $414.7 billion. It’s not a surprise to those watching Apple’s stock the last few days. The symbolism, however, is bigger than Apple: it’s significant that a tech company is no longer perched atop the business world.

This is the first time Apple and Exxon have switched places since last January, when Apple overtook the oil company in market capitalization.

But Apple shares have been on a rollercoaster since September when they hit their peak at $702.10. This week Apple’s stock has dropped precipitously after posting its highest-ever revenues ($54 billion) and profits ($13 billion) and all-time best iPhone and iPad sales of 48 million and 22 million, respectively, during its fiscal first quarter of 2013. Shares are currently valued below $440, after being priced above $510 going into earnings on Wednesday.

Investors are deeply worried that Apple’s profits are no longer growing as fast as they once were and fear Apple is losing ground too fast to competitors like Samsung in both smartphones and tablets. Apple CEO Tim Cook used his time on the company’s earnings call this week to try to instill confidence into analysts that the company’s future is bright and that Apple knows what it’s doing when it comes to making products people will buy and pricing them appropriately and that it has a product pipeline that is “chock-full” of innovative ideas. Thus far, however, his speech does not appear to have had the calming effect he intended.

Update: At the close of the stock market Friday at 1 p.m. PT, Exxon remained on top, but just barely: its market cap stands at $417 billion, and Apple’s is just behind at $416.32.

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Apple’s surprisingly bad day: What’s spooking its investors?

Erica Ogg — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 23:09:20 +0000

Apple’s stock had one of its worst days in four years on Wednesday, despite no news coming from Apple about the company’s financial situation or products. Apple lost $35 billion from its market cap — its largest decline since December 2008 — when its stock dropped 6.43 percent to close at $538.79. Granted, most companies would be pretty happy with a stock price that high. And Apple’s stock is still up more than 40 percent over the last year. But there has been a troubling, three-month long dip in Apple share prices, from its peak of over $700 in mid-September.

There are a variety of factors that have caused the stock to dip and rise since September, but Wednesday was particularly odd because there wasn’t any obvious thing that should be spooking Wall Street. Here are some financial analysts’ best guesses as to what’s afoot:

Oracle Investment Research tells Barron’s it’s possibly related to firms imposing higher margin requirements on clients.
Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray wonders if perhaps there’s some misinterpretation regarding expectations for the iPad going into 2013.
There’s also speculation that Nokia landing a distribution deal with China Mobile could be a setback to the iPhone.
Another theory: Investors may be unhappy that it’s looking less likely that Apple will be issuing a “special dividend” payout before the end of the year.

Apple has set itself up to have a monster sales quarter thanks to the way the company has timed its new product releases this fall. Will investors be assuaged come January earnings time? Maybe, maybe not. It seems like one of the biggest questions investors have isn’t about the current quarter, but what comes after: whether Apple has another “next big thing” in it, and what that will be.

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The Apple Roundup: Apple’s stock hits a new, historic milestone

Erica Ogg — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:59:18 +0000

With so many people writing about Apple, finding the best stories and reports isn’t easy. Here’s our daily pick of stories about the company from around the Web that you shouldn’t miss:

Apple became has been the most valuable public company by market capitalization for months. But, as MacRumors, noted today, it now has the distinction of being the most valuable publicly traded company of all time (not counting inflation) when its market cap hit $619.37 on Monday.
In response to a security report last week that text messages aren’t completely secure, Apple tells Engadget that yes, SMS in general can be spoofed, and that for better security, users should please use iMessage instead.
Asymco looks at the numbers and how the iPad is ramping up way quicker than the iPhone: “At the same point in time, and adjusting for seasonality the iPad is outselling the iPhone by a factor of 3 and the iPod touch by a factor of about 5.”
AdvertisingAge examines what brought on the “hysterically negative reactions” to Apple’s “Genius” TV ads — and defends the intent of the ads.
Is Apple readying for direct sales of Macs, iPhones and iPads in Russia? Russia Today reports on the signs that Apple is getting ready for such a move in 2013.

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Greek debt crisis: there’s an iPad app for that, plus 4 other Apple stories to read today

Erica Ogg — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:49:00 +0000

With so many people writing about Apple, finding the best stories and reports isn’t easy. Here’s our daily pick of stories about the company from around the Web that you shouldn’t miss:

Fortune recounts how the iPad played a role in the Greek debt crisis: the company working on reordering the country’s finances bought 100 of Apple’s tablets, loaded debt-restructuring and real-time analytics software on them, and handed them out to its team scattered all over the globe.
Security guru Eugene Kaspersky wants to create antivirus software for iOS, but he says Apple won’t let him, for a variety of reasons, reports The Register.
Apple’s Monday stock bump added $29 billion to its market cap, or as Daily Finance put it, “about double the size of Research in Motion and Nokia combined.”
Another example of what a company can do with billions in the bank: Apple will spend $27 billion on chips this year, according to analysts at IHS iSuppli, which puts it far ahead of any of its competitors, including Samsung. CNET has the report from IHS iSuppli’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Summit in Paris.
Later this summer TiVo will start selling the TiVo Stream, which will send streaming video from the set-top box to an iPad or an iPhone. ZDNet has details and a photo of the Apple TV-like device.

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Apple shares hit $500 and keep going

Erica Ogg — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:26:38 +0000

Updated. On Monday Apple stock hit an all-time high of $503.83 in early trading, surpassing the magic (and arbitrary) $500 mark. It has since gone back down a bit, but all morning the stock dipped above and below $500. At the time of publishing this post, AAPL was at $499.22.

The stock surge comes several weeks after Apple’s blockbuster earnings announcement, but also in the aftermath of a report about the substandard working conditions at the factories where many of Apple’s most popular products are made by third-party manufacturers. The outcry over the report prompted calls for boycotts and for others to petition Apple to build “an ethical iPhone.”

In any case, investors don’t appear to be fazed. Here’s what Apple’s stock has done in the six months since Tim Cook took over as CEO:

Credit: Yahoo Finance

Update: AAPL ended the day up just over 9 points, closing at $502.60.

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