Apple Short Interest Drops to 54 Million Shares

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 5:48AM EST · Published Jul 13, 8:05AM EDT

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Apple Short Interest Drops to 54 Million Shares — © courtesy of Apple Inc.

Short interest in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) dropped 14% to 53.4 million shares for the period that ended June 30. Maybe some Apple holders believe its earnings will be better than expected, that its business will pick up in China or that the rumors about strong new features of the iPhone 7 are true.

Apple’s shares have traded sideways in the past month and sit at just above $97. That remains depressingly lower than the 52-week high of $133. Concern over Apple’s ability to leapfrog other smartphone technology with the iPhone 7 has driven anxiety. So has the trouble selling the current generation of iPhones in China.

And some investors believe most of the bad news on Apple is out. In a recent story in Barron’s:

With just over two weeks go to before Apple (AAPL) reports third quarter earnings, Mizuho believes that most estimate cuts are in, meaning expectations for the second half of the year are now quite reasonable.

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Not a ringing endorsement, but perhaps a good enough one to support shares until Apple posts good numbers. If iPhone sales hold their own, the quarter should satisfy skeptics.

Apple is up against two trends. One is industrywide and the other from competition. Most global tech research firms show the growth of smartphone sales slowing. And Samsung’s new Galaxy S7, a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone 6 franchise, has done well.

CEO Tim Cook has been attacked for not pushing Apple forward with more revolutionary innovation. Perhaps that is because these advantages are impossible.

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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.