There are many motivations for a CEO insider to sell shares of the company they head. For Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, this has been a pattern that he has established since 2016. Here’s a look at how Apple has performed in the month following the sale of his stock award. Spoiler alert, it hasn’t always been great.
Apple has been a stellar performer as it became the first stock to trade with a $2 trillion market cap. With performance comes incentives for management. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been CEO of Apple since 2011 and presided over a Signiant portion of the company’s rise in market cap.
If you look at the history of Tim Cook’s sales, there is a pattern of selling this time of year for about the same number shares. As he achieves certain milestones and is granted shares of the company’s stock, he consistently sells a portion of these grants.
August 2020 isn’t any different as he sold 265,160 shares for $496.91 on Augusts 25. As you look back to every year to 2016, he has made similar sales. With the share price trading near an all-time high, many investors are wondering whether it’s time for the stock to decline. Looking back over the past four occurrences dating back to 2016, it was a good point to sell in all but one instance in 2019.
Action to Take: AAPL is a stock that is very difficult to want to sell in the current climate. The selling done by Tim Cook is just a reflection of how overvalued the company is.