Apple Short Interest Dips 3%

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 2:28PM EST · Published Jan 28, 6:54AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Apple Short Interest Dips 3% — © courtesy of Apple Inc.

The short interest in Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock fell 3.2% ahead of its troubled earnings to 66 million shares. That was for the period that ended January 15, and it put Apple in the number eight spot among all Nasdaq-traded companies.

The size of the short interest change is small in light of Apple’s recent earnings report, which showed a flattening of iPhone sales and only modest improvement in revenue:

Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 first quarter ended December 26, 2015. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $75.9 billion and record quarterly net income of $18.4 billion, or $3.28 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $74.6 billion and net income of $18 billion, or $3.06 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.1 percent compared to 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 66 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

iPhone sales were 74.8 million, just below an anticipated 75 million.
[recirclink id=311357]
And Apple’s forecast was well under what was expected:

Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2016 second quarter:

revenue between $50 billion and $53 billion

gross margin between 39 percent and 39.5 percent

operating expenses between $6 billion and $6.1 billion

other income/(expense) of $325 million

tax rate of 25.5 percent

Investors short Apple’s stock have benefited from its share price, which is off 22% over the past three months to $93.42 and fell 6.6% in trading the day after its earnings.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.