Apple Short Interest Drops 1.3 Million Shares

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 5:58PM EST · Published Nov 10, 7:15AM EST

Apple Short Interest Drops 1.3 Million Shares — © Wikimedia Commons

Shares sold short in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for the period that ended October 31 changed very little, down just 1.3 million to 54.7 million. News on Apple has been light lately, which might explain the lack of movement.

Apple’s shares are off 4.5% during the past month. Some investors worry that the new iPhone 7 will not sell well over the holidays. Others have voiced concern that Apple Watch sales have cratered. However, for most of the year, investors have been optimistic. The stock is up almost 19% in the past six months.

Another aspect of the tug of war over Apple’s share price is how long the market will have to wait for the iPhone 8. Barron’s recently reported:

UBS’s Steven Milunovich reiterated a Buy rating on Apple …, arguing that looking ahead to the iPhone 8, larges models and OLED screens could boost demand—although it may also lower margins.

Milunovich has a $127 price target on Apple. He argues that the adoption of OLED displays could transform the smartphone industry, and that Apple could release at least two models with OLED screens in fiscal 2018. He thinks OLED displays could increase functionality, strengthen customer rotation, and prompt substantial upgrades, although the bigger screen sizes do concern him in terms of pricing and gross margins.

Fiscal 2018 is a long time away.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.