Jump in Insider Buying at Macquarie Infrastructure after Hedgeye Recommends Shorting the Stock, Spontaneous Insider Sale at Apple Inc. (AAPL), Plus Other Insider Trading

Spontaneous Insider Sale at the iPhone Maker Near 52-Week High

Although heavy pre-arranged insider selling at multinational giants such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a normal occurrence, spur-of-the-moment sales could be seen as an anomaly. Spontaneous insider selling could mean insiders are desperate to trim their holdings while still possible and advantageous. Bruce Sewell, Apple’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Legal and Global Security, discarded 75,000 shares on Thursday at prices varying from $128.01 to $128.59 per share. Mr. Sewell, one of the highest-paid executives in the tech industry, currently owns an aggregate of 161,029 shares after the Thursday sale.

The shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) are trading slightly below their 52-week high of $130.49, after reclaiming the level reached in the summer of 2015. Although Apple’s shares have gained 37% in the past year, some question the sustainability of the $130-per-share level because the tech giant’s largest overseas market – China – has become saturated. The iPhone maker reported net sales of $78.35 billion for the quarter that ended December, up $2.5 billion year-over-year. The company’s top-line figure was positively impacted by an additional week in the first quarter of 2017, primarily offset by an earlier launch of iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, as well as the effect of weakness in foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management upped its position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 2% during the fourth quarter to 11.50 million shares.

Cluster of Insider Selling at the World’s Largest Asset Manager

Last but certainly not least, a number of high-ranked executives at BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) offloaded shares last week. Jeff Smith, global head of Human Resources and a member of the Global Executive Committee, discarded 5,250 shares on Friday at a price of $377 per share, cutting his ownership to 16,686 shares. Rob Fairbairn, Senior Managing Director, sold 2,060 shares on Thursday at prices between $371.07 and $371.30 per share and 2,915 shares on Friday at $374.49 apiece. Mr. Fairbairn currently owns a total of 49,868 shares. Chief Operating Officer Robert L. Goldstein liquidated 10,374 shares on Friday at an average price of $377.31 per share, a sale that trimmed his stake to 49,348 shares. These sales were some of the largest transactions completed by BlackRock executives last week.

The world’s largest asset manager purchased FutureAdvisor, a so-called robo-adviser, during the summer of 2015, a move that could strengthen BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK)’s position in the ETF market should robo-advisors become mainstream. Robo-advisors usually use low-cost exchange traded funds or index funds to construct portfolios. Just recently, BlackRock’s exchange-traded fund unit, called iShares, reached $1 trillion in assets in the United States for the first time. The shares of the world’s largest ETF provider are up 22% in the past 12 months. John Zaro’s Bourgeon Capital owns 7,960 shares of BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK) as of the end of December.

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