Short Interest in Apple Plunges

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 23, 12:48PM EDT · Published Nov 11, 7:02AM EST

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Short Interest in Apple Plunges — © Wikimedia Commons (JoelnQueens)

Short sellers moved out of Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares aggressively in the most recent period, dropping their interest 17.2% to 74.6 million shares. The company’s recent success may be the primary cause.

Apple’s shares have risen more than the Nasdaq over the past two weeks, but they have dipped slightly over the past few days. The new short interest measurement compares October 15 to October 30.

After a successful quarter, Apple is about to release its iPad Pro, which should boost its market share in the tablet business. Apple’s share price has been hurt recently by rumors that it has cut iPhone production, but these are only rumors. Rumors about Apple’s product launches and sales have been proven wrong countless times before.

Investors believe that Apple’s new TV product will help lift its sales. Many investors are enthusiastic about what they expect will be Apple’s move into the car business. Even with these, Apple has shown recently that its model continues to advance sales impressively.

On October 27, Apple announced its financial results:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2015. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $51.5 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.1 billion, or $1.96 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $42.1 billion and net profit of $8.5 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.9 percent compared to 38 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

iPhone sales reached 48 million, even though its new iPhone 6s was not available for some of the quarter. And sales in Greater China, which Apple management claims is at the core of its future, rose 99% to $12 billion of Apple’s quarterly total of $51.5 billion.

Apple has given shareholders good reasons to move into its stock and few to move out.

ALSO READ: 3 Tech Stocks to Buy That Are Benefiting From Big Apple Sales

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.