“Hey, have some investors been screwing around illegally with the shares of high-flying Apple, Inc. [sic], a superstar of the investment scene?” Dan Dorfman wonders for The HuffingtonPost.
“The SEC, as usual, declined comment, and Apple refused to respond to calls seeking comment. Wall Street sources, however, speculated that the agency’s investigation likely centered on possible trading that may have been based on the illegal use of inside information involving three particular Apple-related developments,” Dorfman reports.
In effect, they raise specific questions:
• Whether anyone got an illegal lead on precisely how sales were faring on key items in Apple’s highly successful Ipod product line.
• Whether anyone was given a precise insight into the health of the company’s co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, a cancer survivor who took a six-month leave of absence last January and then received a liver transplant. Subsequent questions about the viability of his health then led to a great deal of volatility in Apple’s shares.
• Whether anyone had exact knowledge of when specific releases would be made by the company with regard to Jobs’ health or Ipod sales and pretty much of an awareness, as well, as to what those announcements would say.
MacDailyNews Take: No mention of the blatant fomenters and other assorted media dregs that distort, concoct, and outright lie about Apple in obvious attempts to affect the company’s fortunes and, directly or indirectly, the company’s stock price? The SEC fails again. No surprise. Still, semi-awake beats brain-dead every time.
Also, please see: Which media outfits are the worst Apple fomenters? – August 31, 2009
Dorfman continues, “Judging from ‘some uncanny trading’ that he saw taking place in Apple, one hedge fund trader told me ‘it almost looked at times like the buyers and sellers were working at the company.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” and “Wingsy” for the heads up.]
About fscking time.
Funny. Every time they tried to raise similar questions about Microsoft circa 1999, their computers crashed.
As for the ” the blatant fomenters and other assorted media dregs that distort, concoct, and outright lie about Apple in obvious attempts to affect the company’s fortunes and, directly or indirectly, the company’s stock price”
Write the SEC and demand that they earn their keep and investigate these. Unless they investigate and punish those see above) Apple will continue to get hurt substantially by baseless FUD and lies.
Every time AAPL seems to pick up a little momentum the SEC files one of these arbitrary investigations. Just maybe it’s the SEC playing a few shenanigans for their buddies on the street.
you dont have to be a genius to trade AAPL when it comes to product/earnings speculation.
sure you will get it wrong part of the time… or someone will throw a bone out saying, “Jobs is dying…” but that is how AAPL will roll because of its being in the media all the time.
SEC failed with the brokerage firms/banks… not AAPL…
Fsck the SEC
Gotta read that Huff & Puff Post. Lefter than left.
I agree with MDN. Asking the question, “Did anyone manipulate the stock using information from within Apple?” completely misses the question, “Did anyone manipulate the stock using their media platform to make sh*t up?”
Thanks for your typical brainless political commentary ron. I had almost forgotten what a putz you can be….
The issue with the media is not an SEC issue unless someone at the media outlet was driving Apple stock up or down because the media outlet was trading in Apple stock.
Simply writing a blatantly wrong piece about Apple, participating in wild speculation, or other examples of pathetic reporting (such as failing to do simple fact-checks) isn’t an SEC offense.
Also, as Cramer stated, the formenter is not the media outlet; it’s the hedge fund operators. They drive rumors and stories to the media to get the stock price to move, and thus they are the ones who should be investigated.
Unfortunately, our media has become so spoon-fed that it can’t even open the jar of strained carrots any longer.