Tech giant Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is having an up day today, but not by much. With Apple up only fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading, some are wondering what’s going on under the hood. As it turns out, the answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: massive insider trading. And it’s not buy trading, either.
No less than Tim Cook himself, Apple’s current CEO, was spotted selling shares as part of a scheduled plan. But regardless of its previously-announced nature, the net result was still a hefty sale. Cook sold off over $41 million worth of shares. Though he still has a hefty 3.28 million shares left in Apple, a $41 million sale is no minor event. Worse yet for investors, there were several other Apple executives making sales in that time as well. Apple’s general counsel and senior vice president, Katherine Adams, sold $11.3 million worth of shares. So too did fellow senior vice president Deirdre O’Brien.
And it didn’t get much better from there. New reports from the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs notes that Apple’s claims of carbon neutrality are questionable at best. The Institute noted that Apple needs to put out more information about its suppliers in order to claim carbon neutrality in its product line. And with Apple reportedly backtracking about transparency in supply chain emissions, according to a report from The Verge, the end result is serious doubt about one of Apple’s biggest selling points.
Is Apple Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Analysts, however, are still largely on board. Currently, Apple stock rates as a consensus Moderate Buy with 20 Buy ratings and nine Holds. Further, with an average price target of $207.69, Apple stock offers investors 19.96% upside potential.
