Apple Short Interest Drops to 62 Million Shares

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 12, 6:51AM EDT

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The surge in Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock, its strong earnings and the ongoing success of the iPhone 6 have probably triggered a flight in short sellers from the tech company’s shares, which dropped from 64.8 million to 62.0 million in the period that ended April 30.

The Apple trend moved against the tide of many other tech stocks. Shares sold short in Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) rose from 72.2 million to 84.5 million. The short interest in Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), which recently replaced long time CEO John Chambers, rose from 42.0 million to 45.1 million.

Apple’s most recent earnings showed revenue rose from $45.6 billion in the quarter a year ago to $58 billion. Net income grew for the same period from $10.2 billion to $13.6 billion. Much of the improvement was driven by iPhone sales, which reached 61.7 million and contributed $40.3 billion to Apple’s sales. Apple announced its plan to give back $200 billion to shareholders via stock buybacks and dividends.

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The quarterly figures also offered proof of Apple’s improved sales in China, which management claims is the most critical factor to future growth. Greater China sales reached $16.8 billion in the quarter, second only to the Americas at $21.3 billion. The major difference between the two markets is that China sales rose 71% while America’s sales were 19% higher.

There is more evidence of Apple’s success in China as well. In a new IDC study of smartphone sales in China, while smartphone sales dropped across the country in the first quarter, the first time a fall-off has happened during any quarter in six years, Apple’s share of the market rose. The jump was by 62.1% from the first quarter of 2014, and it gave Apple a China market share ahead of all other companies at 14.7%.

Finally, some analysts believe that Apple’s new smartwatch will begin to contribute to earnings substantially within the next few quarters. While this is nothing more than a guess, it has caused some optimism on Wall Street. Among the other factors that may have driven shorts out of Apple’s shares is a surge of its stock price by 14% so far this year.

The trend of shorts pulling out of Apple probably is not over.

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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.