“There was a lot of selling pressure on Apple (AAPL) last quarter, to put it mildly. It ended the year down 25% from its September high of $705.07 and has fallen another 12% since then,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “Want know where that pressure came from?”

“The big financial institutions — banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, pension funds etc. — that manage more than $100 million in equities were required to tell the Securities and Exchange Commission by the end of day Thursday what they bought and sold — including their Apple holdings — between the start of the quarter and the end,” P.E.D. reports. “Things get even more interesting when you look at the trading in Apple options. Goldman Sachs, for example, sold 1.2 million shares in Q4. But it also added to its derivative holdings, and at the end of the quarter held $1.9 billion worth of Apple calls and $1.3 billion worth of puts.”

P.E.D. reports, “That’s small change compared with Susquehanna International. It ended the quarter with puts worth $14 billion (up 1.9 million contracts for the quarter) and calls worth $10 billion (up 1 million contracts).”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Dan K." for the heads up.]