Apple Short Interest Rises Over 5 Million Shares

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 11:33AM EST · Published Mar 25, 9:05AM EDT

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Apple Short Interest Rises Over 5 Million Shares — © courtesy of Apple Inc.

The short interest in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) rose by 5.3 million shares to 52.7 million for the period that ended March 15. The move came just ahead of the announcement of the new iPhone SE, a smartphone that has allowed consumers to buy the product at a lower price point.

Those investors who have sold Apple short recently may regret their decisions. The iPhone SE helped push shares higher, both during rumors about its launch and when the product finally was announced. Apple’s price has risen over 9% in the past month, but it remains down 15% over the past year.

The iPhone SE represents a huge gamble by Apple, which may affect the image of its brand and the ability to sell a much more expensive iPhone 7 when the product is released, probably in September. Apple has prided itself, and rewarded investors, as creator of the highest-priced, most-prized smartphones in the world. A new “cheap” handset may undermine that.
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Two tipping points could significantly change investor sentiment in coming months. The first of these is obviously earnings, driven primarily by iPhone sales and success, or lack of it, in Greater China. The other is the launch of the of the iPhone 7, along with whatever rumors come ahead of it. If it is not a smash hit, the quarterly numbers won’t mean much. Short sellers will have a heyday.

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.