Apple bears scamper as Jobs’ resignation sends puts to one-year low

“Prices to insure Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares from losses dropped to a one-year low after Steve Jobs, who presided over a 91-fold increase in the stock, stepped down as chief executive officer,” Cecile Vannucci and Jeff Kearns report for Bloomberg.

“Instead of increasing equity swings, Apple shares are almost unchanged since Aug. 24 when Jobs, who turned the company into the world’s biggest by market value, said he resigned,” Vannucci and Kearns report. “Implied volatility for three-month options at the current stock price fell to 1.07 times the level of historic volatility, down from this year’s peak of 1.9 in February. Options usually rise when moves in the underlying security increase.”

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Vannucci and Jeff Kearns report, “Reduced costs for puts, or bearish bets, show the prospect of Apple without Jobs as CEO isn’t shaking options traders as investors focus on earnings and as analysts project record profits. Before, stockholders were concentrating on the health of Jobs, who founded the company in 1976 and was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2003.”

Read more in the full article here.
 

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]

22 Comments

  1. not sure what this means for the real world. I’m increasingly finding that Wall Street antics have nothing to do with investing in companies and everything to do with betting on the ponies — it’s a sucker’s bet unless you’re on the inside.

    Forget taxing the rich, tax the Wall Street players per transaction and eliminate margin bets. If Vegas casino’s require you to have $100 to bet $100, so should the Wall Street casinos.

    1. You’ve hit the nail on the head. They toss fundamentals out the window and only concern themselves about distant future earnings which I doubt anyone can predict. Wall Street seems more like they’re into ruining solid companies than promoting them to investors. F**k those pinstriped manipulators.

    2. +1

      Instead of “value added taxes”, that tax a “product” at each stage and in each company that brings it to market we should reduce those taxes, and focus on a “no value added tax” that taxes earnings that add absolutely no value to anything, like money made gambling or on Wall Street in short term trading.

      That would provide an incentive to increase real productivity, and de-emphasize destructive financial antics like what we see on Wall Street today!

    1. Since Google has started tightening it’s belt after blowing 12 really big one on Motorola, I heard the following at a local truckstop, “Google stockholders, party of sixteen, your shower is ready.”

  2. The problems with this type of rationale regarding stock market behavior are (1) it stems from hindsight viewpoint, not a predictive one, and, (2) it is based on supposition regarding cause and effect.

    If just a couple of months ago you had asked 1000 analysts, pundits, et. al., what would happen to Apple’s stock in this exact situation, I am willing to bet that very few, if any, would have correctly predicted the response of AAPL. Now this article pops up after the fact and explains the rationale behind the cause and effect. But the “insights” contained in the article certainly were not apparent before the actual event, nor is it obvious that these insights are useful in predicting future stock behavior for Apple or any other company. And how can you test the suppositions, anyway?

  3. Now, and for at least the next two to three years, Apple is in the BEST possible situation. The less well-informed and “emotional” investors are now much less concerned about the health of Steve Jobs, and potential APPL price impact caused by related news and rumors. Therefore, more stability. They are all now considering mostly the financial “facts and figures” about Apple that actually matter.

    Meanwhile, the person who has already been running Apple day-to-day as acting CEO for much of the last two to three years takes over officially as CEO. He is an “operations” expert, ideally suited to lead Apple during this next phase of growth. There have been no sudden departures of key employees, meaning the move was long expected and planned internally. AND finally (something that many of the “experts” seem to ignore), Steve Jobs is still there, as Board Chairman, providing ongoing strategic and conceptual guidance (as he has been already).

    Apple (the company) will execute and succeed as it has been, but APPL (the stock) will carry much less of the “Steve Jobs health” discount.

      1. Captain Cook has solidly surveyed and charted the correct course ahead whilst Captain “Steve Ballmer” Smith aboard the MS TITANIC is throwing around the deck chairs whilst maniacally bouncing up and down chanting “Developers, developers, developers – cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo…”.

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