A Hint That Steve Jobs’ Departure Date Has Been Planned for a While

Andy Zaky:

About a month ago, when Apple released the date when it planned to report its fiscal Q1 earnings results, I found the date extremely peculiar. Here’s why:

Since 2007, Apple has always chosen to report earnings during the last week of the month in order to avoid the manipulation that usually comes with options expiration week. If you go back at least 14-16 quarters, Apple has reported during the last week of the month in every one of those reporting periods. I remember that it started doing this in response to reports of complaints of share manipulation during OPX.

But now that we have the Steve Jobs news, the reporting date makes a whole lot of sense.

With the holiday yesterday and blockbuster results today, I think it’s fair to say that yesterday was the single best day of the entire calendar year on which Jobs could have announced a medical leave of absence.

★ Tuesday, 18 January 2011