Bloomberg is reporting that the SEC is investigating Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) over disclosures related to CEO Steve Jobs' health.The case will be nearly impossible to prove and seems unlikely to go anywhere even if investigators do conclude that there was wrongdoing. Because companies are not required to report on the health of their executives -- it's not material in the way that an earnings miss or director resignation is -- the SEC would seem to have to prove that Apple proactively misled investors with its reports on Jobs' health.
But the larger point is this: Who cares? The SEC sat idly by while Bernie Madoff ripped investors off to the tune of $50 billion, and now its poking around in Steve Jobs' pancreas? Give me a break! Shouldn't the SEC be spending its valuable time doing things like oh, I don't know, improving disclosure rules for financial institutions?
I will be shocked -- shocked -- if this little inquiry ends up going anywhere and given how thin on resources the SEC is, it should be left to the class-action lawyers who sue every time a stock goes down.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-21-2009 @ 9:47AM
Beltway Greg said...
It's about time. And while they're at it they ought to investigate Oppenheimer's poor performance. Apple is about to release earnings of $1.71/share a beat of incredible proportions. Of course, Pete's apocalyptic vision of the future, coupled with the macro-market, and, the public's gross misunderstanding of Apple's true earnings, will keep things compelling and complex. The interesting thing is that the SEC or anyone else may not have a case because Apple wasn't propping up its share price for some sort of nefarious purpose. Basically, they've performed incredibly the past year and yet the folks at home coupled with the hedge funds just keep selling. Steve has a point, why given the performance of the company, do people find his his health concerns so interesting? Oppenheimer's guidance has cost shareholders as much as Steve's health concerns. Material misrepresentation to the upside or the downside is material misrepresentation.
If Apple could only manage shareholder expectations as well as they manage the introduction of products.
1-21-2009 @ 11:11AM
BHarrison said...
It's all "smoke and mirrors" anyway, isn't it. There is very little INTEGRITY in the markets or the corporations . . . nothing is qutie as it is represented to be.
If it past time to require that all comanies adhere to good accounting principles, standards, and procedures . . . "creative accounting" needs to be criminalized for the FRAUDS that it is used to perpetuate.
There should be requirements for FULL DISCLOSURES and TRANSPARENCY in compliance with good and sound business practices. The ongoing economic debacle has revealed the massive FRAUDS and orchestrated financial misrepresentations that have defrauded so many Americans and caused the collapse of our economic system.
The SIMPLE RESOLUTION is adherence to ethics and INTEGRITY . . . let every company (and stock) stand on the merit of the value of the corporation and the market competition.
We're experiencing what "smoke and mirrors" FRAUD has wrought; doing it the "right way" is our only hope for the future.
1-21-2009 @ 7:19PM
sunjock said...
ARE YOU CRAZY... for almost a decade the SEC does NOT investigate that pesky little Bernie Maddoff. AND now the SEC jumps in to investigate how Steve Jobs announces to the world his health conditions. WE ARE SCREWED!!!