“Those who make their living from rules and more rules are muttering darkly about Apple CEO Tim Cook’s intervention in Monday’s global stock-market crash,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. writes for The Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Cook, after an email from CNBC’s Jim Cramer asking about sales in China, responded with an email of his own. Whatever was happening to their stock prices, Chinese consumers were still buying iPhones, he said, with Apple continuing to ‘experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August.'”
“Mr. Cramer reported the news and the descent in Apple’s stock price moderated a bit—supposedly it’s a bad thing when timely and accurate information is reflected in stock prices,” Jenkins writes. “But Mr. Cook’s comments also had a wider significance. His was a reminder that there’s a real economy of goods and services and transactions out there, especially useful when crashing stock markets are so heavily influenced by monetary manipulations.”
“For his useful and informative act, though, many of the media’s favorite securities lawyers want Mr. Cook hauled up before the Securities and Exchange Commission, under its Regulation FD, which seeks to control the information in stock prices from some imaginary ideal of fairness,” Jenkins writes. “He should be applauded. Mr. Cook lent timely evidence for the view that this week’s stock disaster was only tenuously connected to the real economy.”
“Unfortunately, corporate statements tend to vary as wildly as anybody else’s, from the crunchy and informative to the deeply bogus. An example of the latter was the Apple’s statement to the New York Times last week, after the paper had decided belatedly to notice the record of Dr. Dre,” Jenkins writes. “Apple issued its own statement saying, ‘Dre has apologized for the mistakes he’s made in the past and he’s said that he’s not the same person that he was 25 years ago. We believe his sincerity and after working with him for a year and a half, we have every reason to believe that he has changed.’ Though there is nothing funny about beating up women, this statement is hilarious because Apple certainly did not condition its purchase of Beats on Dr. Dre over the next year and a half demonstrating the sincerity of his regret for his assaults on Ms. Barnes and at least two other women.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless of propriety, Cook should have made the statement about Apple’s business in China via press release, tweet, or open letter to everyone, at the same time, not to a single person, so that nobody potentially had inside information for even a nanosecond (which is all it take for a trade to execute). As for Beats, Apple should have purchased the company if they determined it worthwhile, paid Andre Young his share and simply sent him on him on his way, not provided him with a (seemingly honorary) position at Apple Inc.
Now we’re stuck with a sad, new meaning for “Beats by Dr. Dre.” Change the name, at least, Apple!
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s Dr. Dre apologizes for past abuse of women, Apple issues statement – August 21, 2015SEC to sanction Apple CEO Cook for his $63 billion email? – August 24, 2015
Apple shares recover from white-knuckle plunge after CEO Cook emails Jim Cramer – August 24, 2015
Apple CEO Cook may have violated U.S. SEC rules with email to Jim Cramer – August 24, 2015
CEO Tim Cook to Jim Cramer: Apple is seeing strong growth in China through July, August – August 24, 2015
Cramer is a member of the press. It’s no different than had the request for information come from a NY Times reporter.
Dre may be criticized for any number of things, but reaching back 25 years to dredge up negative information is stretching things a bit.
Both items are examples of Apple bears/haters trying to manufacture negative news for selfish reasons. The mindless echo chamber then picks up on it and we’re off to the races. Idiots!
Dr. Dre Beats Women because he’s a pussy. Come over here, Andre, and try it with a real man. I’ll knock your ugly fscking mug off.
Michel’le, an ex-girlfriend of Dre and singer, did not accept his apology as she believes it was just a PR stunt to stop any damage to the film or his Beats by Dre brand.
‘I don’t really think it’s a sincere apology,’ she told BBC Radio 5 Live, ‘I didn’t ask for a public apology and I think if he is going to apologise he should do it individually.’
‘To just group us like we are nothing and nobody – I just don’t think it’s sincere, treat us like we have names. He’s selling a movie. I just think it’s good PR at the moment.’
Metro
***
During that time, she said, he was often physically abusive, hitting her with a closed fist and leaving “black eyes, a cracked rib and scars.” Michel’le said she never pressed charges because, “We don’t get that kind of education in my culture.”
According to a statement Ms. Barnes issued at the time, Dr. Dre began punching her in the head and “slamming her face and the right side of her body repeatedly against a wall.” (Charged with assault and battery, he pleaded no contest. He was sentenced to community service and probation, fined $2,500 and ordered to make a domestic violence P.S.A.; a civil suit was settled out of court.)
“I suffer from horrific migraines that started only after the attack,” she wrote. “My head does ring and it hurts, exactly in the same spot every time where he smashed my head against the wall.”
NYTimes
These groupies that hang around with abusive people have no one to blame but themselves. First time she was physically assaulted, she should have been out of the relationship.
Blaming the victims is despicable.
Congratulations! You’re the biggest piece of crap I’ve encountered today. Until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, don’t dare to tell them how they should have behaved. You clearly have no idea what it’s like for someone you truly love and trust to betray you like that.
U.S. Fair Disclosure, Regulation FD
Regulation FD addresses the selective disclosure of information by publicly traded companies and other issuers. Regulation FD provides that when an issuer discloses material nonpublic information to certain individuals or entities—generally, securities market professionals, such as stock analysts, or holders of the issuer’s securities who may well trade on the basis of the information—the issuer must make public disclosure of that information. In this way, Regulation FD aims to promote the full and fair disclosure.
sec.gov/rules/final/33-7881.htm
“to certain individuals or entities—generally, securities market professionals, such as stock analysts, or holders of the issuer’s securities who may well trade on the basis of the information”
Cramer is not a stock analyst and he holds Apple shares in a family trust. It won’t be hard to investigate whether he traded on the information before reporting it on the financial news show, CNBC. Tempest in a teapot.
The SEC investigation probably won’t just stop at Cramer but also extend to any people that have a direct connection with him. (e.g. family, co-workers, close friends)
There is an agenda going on. . . feeding the bear market. Three minutes after Jim Cramer reported the Tim Cook claim that Apple’s iPhone was selling well, Market Realist‘s Adam Rogers REPOSTED on Yahoo! an August 14th story claiming that “Apple Loses Market Share in China’s Smartphone Segment”
Market Realist By Adam Rogers—August 25, 2015 9:09 AM
This had to be a deliberate counter to Tim Cook’s message. . . an in your eye poke by Adam Rogers intended to knock down the impact of what Cook had said.
It went along with the deliberate misrepresentations on Yahoo! Finance about Apple missing REVENUE targets in its Financial Call last months just exactly when the market closed, when Apple exceeded those targets. . . and even exceeded the whisper numbers Yahoo! itself was predicting at 8:30 that same morning! Why the falsehoods? I am convinced that was a lot of what drove the after-hours drop in AAPL.
Mr. Cook reached out to a reporter knowing the information would be made public, period. He did make the whole of WS pause and think. The SEC should be after the short sellers who made money off the crash and fine the hell out of them.
Regardless, Cook violated Reg FD.
I gave my opinion you gave your opinion. Your trouble sounds like opinions contrary to yours do not exist. Take your chill pill.
No, you gave your opinion, baseless as it were, and I gave you the link to the U.S. SEC’s Fair Disclosure, Regulation FD rules which Cook violated.
So F-ing what?!! If the SEC must they can fine Apple $10,000 and be on their way. Intent matters in a court of law and the SEC should acknowledge the intent and it’s positive (however temporary) consequences on the stock market.
“Regardless, Cook violated Reg FD.”
No, he didn’t moron. FD exempts media disclosures. So nice of you to comment on a reg you obviously haven’t read.
I’ll take the opinion of the guy who, if I remember correctly, teaches law over the amateur’s opinion.
That was not material non public information. He gave no quantification. So how does one trade on such info. He had said business was strong in China at the earnings call. The analists were the ones spewing garbage.
Agree the info should have gone out via press release. This might cost Apple or Mr. Cook $1M or so. A slap on the wrist.
I was reading a article on the Chinese economy and came across this phrase concerning what the Communist Party government is doing; “…slashed interest rates to a record low and launched an assault on illegal short-selling.” That is exactly what needs to happen in the USA. Stop the short sellers who are ruining all of our investments.
Shorts, Micro Trading, Fractional Trading, what do these contribute to our socioeconomic system that justify their legal existences? The only possible legitimate argument I have heard to support them is that they provide increased liquidity to the market. What I see is that they provide hyper liquidity to the point of volatility to the market. How is volitility good for our socioeconomic system.
When coupled with the ease with which bogus “news” articles create FUD and the resultant emotional trading, it seems clear that that volatility can be used to systematically play (manipulate) the market. Why are these forms of “investing” in the stock markets legal if they have such limited benefits while exposing our financial systems to such extreme irrational, emotional volatility?
Rightly or wrongly short selling has taken a bad rap lately. Yet very little direct evidence can be found that short sellers are driving the bear market. More often than not they are reacting to negative news rather than driving it.
Those proposing to ban it should consider the unintended consequences of doing so. Short selling enhances the stock market’s liquidity. Banning it would mean it would take longer for a stock to adjust to its true value. This might appear to be a good thing in the short term. But in the longer term stocks could deviate even more from their true value over time making market corrections even more sudden and volatile than they currently are.
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
There is liquidity and then there is volatility.
As I understand it, about 50% of trades over the past week have been micro trades. When stocks can be bought and sold in less than a second you create hyper liquidity, volatility. With this constant state of hyper liquidity, there is not enough of a stabilizing force in the markets to maintain a healthy balance. The volatility also makes it too easy to manipulate the emotions of the market.
There is no socioeconomic justification for such short term trading that I can see. There should still be plenty of opportunity to create adequate and healthy liquidity if a stock had to be held for 1 hour, or even 1 day before selling it in order to create some stability in the system.
I can agree with having a threshold time between the BUY and SELL transactions for any single stock ticker to manage hyper-liquidity while also leveling the field between human and computer traders.