Institutional ownership of AAPL stock dropped 4% in Q2 2013
Institutional investors appeared to have lost some faith in Apple's performance last quarter, as a new examination shows that their holdings in the iPhone maker dropped 4 percent over the period.
The second quarter of this year marked the third quarterly drop in institutional ownership of Apple shares, according to a FactSet report cited Monday by MarketWatch. How solid a trend last quarter's four percent drop represents, though, is uncertain due to what appears to be a steady rebound in the company's share price.
Apple shares dropped 10.4 percent over the second quarter to bottom out at $396.50, one of the company's lowest prices in years. Since then, though, shares have rebounded by 28 percent, and currently sit above $500.
AAPL saw a boost recently from the announcement by Carl Icahn that he was taking a roughly $1.5 billion stake in Apple, saying that the Cupertino company was "extremely undervalued." FactSet's figures predate Icahn's announcement, raising some questions as to the degree to which that institutional holdings trend is still applicable given the turnaround.
A number of investors have become very cautious on Apple in recent months, even given the company's strong profitability. Competition from Google's Android and other phone manufacturers, the reasoning goes, could gradually marginalize Apple at the expense of those profits. Wall Street has long called for Apple to introduce a cheaper iPhone or to bring out new, innovative products to spark growth again.
The past few weeks, though, have seen increasing evidence that Apple will at least debut a lower-cost iPhone in early September, a fact that has encouraged some investors. Additionally, Apple announced earlier this year a dividend program, a move thought by some to be aimed at putting a bottom under AAPL, which at the time was hemorrhaging value.
Still, institutional investors may hold off on repurchasing Apple stock until they see more of what the company has in store. In April, Apple's largest active shareholder cut its stake by 10 percent. At the same time, institutional investors grew their shares of Microsoft by 2.9 percent and of Google by 1.7 percent.
The second quarter of this year marked the third quarterly drop in institutional ownership of Apple shares, according to a FactSet report cited Monday by MarketWatch. How solid a trend last quarter's four percent drop represents, though, is uncertain due to what appears to be a steady rebound in the company's share price.
Apple shares dropped 10.4 percent over the second quarter to bottom out at $396.50, one of the company's lowest prices in years. Since then, though, shares have rebounded by 28 percent, and currently sit above $500.
AAPL saw a boost recently from the announcement by Carl Icahn that he was taking a roughly $1.5 billion stake in Apple, saying that the Cupertino company was "extremely undervalued." FactSet's figures predate Icahn's announcement, raising some questions as to the degree to which that institutional holdings trend is still applicable given the turnaround.
A number of investors have become very cautious on Apple in recent months, even given the company's strong profitability. Competition from Google's Android and other phone manufacturers, the reasoning goes, could gradually marginalize Apple at the expense of those profits. Wall Street has long called for Apple to introduce a cheaper iPhone or to bring out new, innovative products to spark growth again.
The past few weeks, though, have seen increasing evidence that Apple will at least debut a lower-cost iPhone in early September, a fact that has encouraged some investors. Additionally, Apple announced earlier this year a dividend program, a move thought by some to be aimed at putting a bottom under AAPL, which at the time was hemorrhaging value.
Still, institutional investors may hold off on repurchasing Apple stock until they see more of what the company has in store. In April, Apple's largest active shareholder cut its stake by 10 percent. At the same time, institutional investors grew their shares of Microsoft by 2.9 percent and of Google by 1.7 percent.
Comments
Finally!!! All the heavy lifting work of the nay-sayers and doom forecasters has paid off! They were working sooo hard at manipulating Apple's stock, I was afraid all their efforts were for naught!
Now, watch Apple's stock hit the stratosphere after September 10th.
Institutional Investors... maybe like Steve Ballmer, he made great decisions on Apple stock as well if I remember... what was the loss there according to AI... 11 billion plus??
I also read that Apple plunged to 79th in innovation somewhere...
Just keep bringing it, I have a few years to retirement and all this negativity is letting me load up on a vastly undervalued stock. Time to back up the truck!
I wish more than 4% was the case. World will chase Apple in 2014 to new highs
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1983
It'll probably be below 500 by tomorrow and back to 400 in a week...frustrating.
If you feel so frustrated, why don't you sell now, and buy it later when (according to your prediction) it gets to $400 again? Surely you can profit from that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
How is Apple stock plummeting? In the last 5 days its been up 2%, over 17% in the last month. There have been days recently where Apple was up and Google was down. Google is down almost 2% over the last 5 days and over 4% in the past month.
They just write whatever BS articles they want to write and it's up to the reader to believe it or not.
A more interesting question is.
While Apple release all new MacBookPros, iMacs, and MacMinis with Thunberbolt 2? I know it probably doesn't make sense for the Air, since most of those users will probably be buying something like the Belkin Express Dock, Thunderbolt Monitor, etc. which don't really need Thunderbolt 2 speed, but is Apple only going to release Thunderbolt 2 on JUST the MacPro or will they release it on other models. If so, which ones?
Same thing with SSD memory. Will all of other models get the 800MBps like the Air, or are they getting the 1250MBps like the MacPro?
Also, I'm sure they'll make a thinner 27inch Thunderbolt display for the non-4K people and then at least one size 4K display.
This should be interesting what happens in the next few months..
I hope by then we will loose an other 4% of those'
Did the market just forget that Apple has extremely deep pockets? The longer the market keeps AAPL undervalued, the closer Apple gets to taking itself private.
I'd guess that the market will cave before that happens....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sacto Joe
Did the market just forget that Apple has extremely deep pockets? The longer the market keeps AAPL undervalued, the closer Apple gets to taking itself private.
I'd guess that the market will cave before that happens....
Why would Apple need to go private? No one has enough money to buy the company. The reason why Dell is going private is to hold off on an unfriendly buyout. Plus they have horrible financials.
Not saying Apple will or that it's a good idea, but going private removes outside influences and put these analysts out of a job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jungmark
Not saying Apple will or that it's a good idea, but going private removes outside influences and put these analysts out of a job.
do you make stock investments? If you don't, then there is no need to listen to them. If you do, my advice is to read all of the analyst's reports, get a feel for what the market is doing in terms of the large investment shareholders, etc. and know when to buy, when to hold and when to sell. There's an art to it. Some of these guys, whether you like what they say are accurate, and sometimes not. But an astute investor will do as much research as humanly possible and make the best decisions when having a full amount of information. I didn't like it when some of the analysts were not saying favorable things about Apple a couple of years ago, but the stock price did take a tumble, then it went back up and then back down again. Stocks like Apple, can't unfortunately accelerate at high growth rates forever. At some point, the ride has to take a different turn. But if you are in Apple for the long haul, then I see no reason why it might not hit 1,000 a share, it just might take a little while. Apple users want Apple to be successful and we want the stock to do well in the market, but unfortunately it's going to take some corrections here and there, but when Apple starts releasing great selling products and the profits are in high growth mode, then the stock might do well. Obviously, I wish the laptop and desktop market was doing a LOT better. But the same is happening with the PC industry and they are sliding at a faster rate.
Apple does have a lot of potential in the desktop/laptop market if people started to buy them again at a 30 to 35% growth rate, unfortunately that's not happening anymore like it USED to.
Originally Posted by drblank
Why would Apple need to go private? No one has enough money to buy the company.
Yet. In a few years, they might.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Yet. In a few years, they might.
I doubt it. Their employees make money from the sale of stocks and stock options. When a company is private, they have to conjure up a different method for compensating employees and it's a different compensation package. I've never worked for a company that big that's privately held. Most companies with at least a few hundred employees go public. The only companies I know of that go private end up either going out of business or getting sold off to someone else, so at this point I see no reason why Apple would take the company private.
Can you think of a reason why they would? about the only reason might be if they were to merge or buy a company that the SEC wouldn't normally approve since they govern publicly traded companies from that standpoint.
Originally Posted by drblank
Their employees make money from the sale of stocks and stock options.
Apple… does have at least one other source of revenue, I'd think.
When a company is private, they have to conjure up a different method for compensating employees and it's a different compensation package.
Imagine… A company, say… SELLING something to make their money!
Can you think of a reason why they would?
To stop the years of slander and libel from artificially destroying company value. To ensure pure creative freedom from the worthless and idiotic expectations and demands of uninformed shareholders.
Companies go public if they need a lot of capital in a short period of time. Private companies don't have to report any financial data nor will they "miss" analyst guesses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jungmark
Companies go public if they need a lot of capital in a short period of time. Private companies don't have to report any financial data nor will they "miss" analyst guesses.
What's your education background? I would at least like to know if you have a finance degree or not.
I can discuss this topic on a much deeper level if you like, but your assessment is VERY superficial at best and it's a little on the misleading side as you accentuate aspects of this subject that's not that important and the only important reason.
When company starts out, they typically get seed money from typically a VC. VCs want to invest in the company to the point where they can take the company pubic to not only get their money back, but also raise money to grow the company because they tapped out the VC community for funds. Remember Facebook? They got BILLIONS dumped into that company and they probably got more seed money than anyone else, and the VCs wanted to take them public so they can pull their investment out of it and still give Facebook working capital to continue to buy other companies, invest in infrastructure, etc. Going public is not getting quick cash. It can take a LONG time to raise money through an iPO, to get quick money, they can get it usually much easier going through VCs, or getting a bank loan. Going public takes timing in the market. Some companies can take several years just time the IPO for best results. It took Facebook several years from when they started the procedure to go public to when they actually did, so they continually tapped VC money instead for the quick hits.
Now, when a company goes private, it's because they might be exposed to getting an unfriendly buyout. If they are publicly traded, anyone can buy blocks of shares and if the company isn't doing too well and stock plummets like it did with Dell, someone else could scoop them up that they don't want. So, they decided to go private. It's costly to do that because they have buy all of the stock back and the employees have to go on some sort of compensation package that doesn't include the normal stock options and stock program because it's more difficult to do that with private companies since the employee can't sell on the open market. So, they might not attract the best talent because I highly doubt Dell will go public again. They can, but I don't know if they will.
But, of the companies that I've seen go from public to private USUALLY are in financial trouble, unlike Apple, and they either go out of business or they get bought out by another company, or put under the direction of a management group to see about turning around the company, but typically, but not always, it's not a good sign to go private.
Of course it is to raise money, and they don't have to report, but there's a LOT more to it than that. They're used to analyst guesses, they probably aren't even bothered by the media. too much. They tend to learn how to ignore the media and the financial analysts. It's part of their job. It would be similar to you driving your car and another driver yelled at you when you made a dumb move while driving. Eventually, you learn to ignore it. That's how most of these CEO's handle analysts.