Short Interest in Apple Drops 3.4 Million Shares

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 11, 6:23AM EST

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Short sellers moved out of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for the period that ended January 30. Perhaps they worried that Apple’s share price could rush higher, as it has. Apple’s stock price has risen 17% over the past month, compared to a 2% improvement in the S&P. Investor enthusiasm moved up again too, as Apple became the first company in history to have a market cap over $700 billion.

Apple’s share price sits at $122. At least one analyst believes it could rise to $150.

Apple gave another reason to pressure short sellers. On January 27, it posted revenue of $74.6 billion, up from $57.6 billion in the same quarter the year before. Net profit rose to $18 billion from $13.1 billion. At the center of its success, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones. Management expects Chinese sales to help push that number higher. Apple’s growth curve should stay steep.

The short interest in Apple sat at 59.0 million shares as of January 30, down from 62.4 million for the period that ended January 15 — a 5.5% drop. Apple’s daily share volume averages 74.7 million. If Apple’s share price keeps rising, the short interest could drop again this month.

Apple’s market performance has been powerful by any measure. Short interest in its shares confirms that investors who bet on a share price increase have benefited. Those who have bet against it have run away.

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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.