Short Interest in Apple Rises by Over 1 Million Shares

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 1:56AM EST · Published Oct 26, 7:20AM EDT

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Short Interest in Apple Rises by Over 1 Million Shares — © courtesy of Apple Inc.

Shares sold short in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) rose 1.3 million to 56 million in the most recent settlement period. The very modest increase happened as Apple’s share price was mostly rising, and over a week before earnings. Apple’s shares moved 2% lower after it announced a quarter in which revenue fell from the same period a year ago, and it posted its first year of down revenue since 2011.

In the past three months, Apple’s shares have risen 22% to $118, and several analysts believe it will go much higher. Earnings helped the case somewhat, as they beat expectations:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 fourth quarter ended September 24, 2016. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $46.9 billion and quarterly net income of $9 billion, or $1.67 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $51.5 billion and net income of $11.1 billion, or $1.96 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

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Also:

Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2017 first quarter:

revenue between $76 billion and $78 billion

gross margin between 38 percent and 38.5 percent

operating expenses between $6.9 billion and $7 billion

other income/(expense) of $400 million

tax rate of 26 percent

More good news should come with the holidays, as the iPhone 7 is expected to sell briskly and to be helped by the disaster of the competing Samsung Galaxy Note 7. On the other hand, Apple disclosed that demand for the iPhone 7 Plus was so high that Apple may be unable to keep up with orders.

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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.