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Taking Stock (& Selling It) (7/27/98)
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Hmmm, does Fred Anderson know something we don't? Apple's kick-ass CFO, who has done more than his share of good hard work straightening out Apple's financial debacle over the last couple of years, has registered to sell off 133,000 shares of Apple stock, to the tune of almost $5 million. And Jon Rubinstein, Apple's hardware engineering guru, has also registered to sell about half that amount. A CNET article has the skinny.
So how should we interpret Fred and Jon's actions? The stock price is dropping following a huge rally after Apple reported its third consecutive profitable quarter, which seems to be a normal correction. But the iMac hits store shelves in a scant three weeks, which we at AtAT assume would send the stock on an upward swing again. (Of course, the fact that we know absolutely nothing about the stock market is precisely the reason that we don't own any stock in anything.)
We suppose that it's important not to read too much into stock sales. It's simply good business to sell off some Apple stock now, as it starts dipping lower from its highest point in over two years (and if anyone knows good business, it's Fred Anderson). Heck, Fred probably just wants to buy a boat or three. Both he and Jon Rubinstein would appear to have several hundred thousand shares and/or unexercised options remaining after the sale. Compare and contrast that with Steve Jobs, who sold off all his shares but one last year, making him the only CEO we know of (interim or not) whose investment in the company he's running is a mere $34.44 more than ours. And actually, if you count hardware and software investments into the equation, we're probably beating out Steve, who, last we heard, was still computing on non-Apple hardware. Apple's one big odd family, that's for sure.
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SceneLink (891)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 7/27/98 episode: July 27, 1998: Could the "El Capitan" casing used in the prototypes of Apple's new pro-level Power Macs finally bring light-up computing to the world? Meanwhile, Motorola announces some new faster G3's that not only continue to run rings around the Pentium architecture speed-wise, but also make a Pentium II looks like a branding iron. And Apple's CFO is selling off some stock, which makes us go "Hmmmm..."
Other scenes from that episode: 889: Maybe This Time (Please?) (7/27/98) Oh, our cup runneth over... as the rest of the professional Mac-using world awaits the arrival of the new pro-level G3 systems to see how many slots it ends up having, we at AtAT are on the edge of our seats due to reports that the new casing and design are so beautiful and cool, they belong in the Museum of Modern Art... 890: This Speed is Cool (7/27/98) Meanwhile, the question of what processors will be slapped inside the upcoming Pro systems seems to have been answered. Motorola just officially announced their new G3 PPC 750 processors running at 300, 333, and 366 MHz...
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