Theories on AAPL’s $500 Close

Nick Summers, Businessweek:

Take a look at the option chain data for Apple, for those bets expiring Jan. 19. (Monthly options expire on the Saturday after the third Friday of the month.) There were more than 66,000 contracts at $500, more than twice as many than at any other price.

“People are correlative animals,” says Lipkin. “They tend to see things that are patterns. But what they don’t see are the probabilities.”

The conspiracy, if you will, is not that AAPL closed at precisely $500.00 Friday. The conspiracy is that those who stood to profit from Apple closing at or under $500 have been spreading pessimistic bullshit for months to drive the stock price down.

★ Tuesday, 22 January 2013