apple inc chief operating officer jeff williams sold 30 million in stock last week in what one expert deemed an “opportunistic” move by the longtime apple executive williams sold 187730 shares of apple aapl at an average price of 15976 on march 22 according to a filing with the securities and exchange commission released friday his sale was made in conjunction with a 10b51 trading plan which lets executives and other company insiders arrange for stock sales to take place under certain conditions like timing and pricing williams’ plan was adopted nov 29 2021 and modified feb 16 2023 because sales made under trading plans take place under predetermined conditions they don’t always send useful signals to the investment community but sometimes they do williams’ sale struck veritydata research director ben silverman as “a negative valuation data point” he wrote in a report to clients because williams “deviated from his wellestablished behavior of selling at the time of a restricted stock vesting and in doing so sold at a targeted price” he did sell shares obtained from his latest vesting but those restricted units vested at the beginning of october when apple’s stock was trading near 138 “the message here is that he thought stock was undervalued previously” silverman told marketwatch “he held out which was smart and now it gives us an idea of where’s he’s comfortable” selling williams has two large stock vestings annually—early in april and october—and he typically sells shortly after the units vest that he didn’t sell last october implies that at the time of that vesting “the stock was below a minimum sale price threshold employed by williams and that the amendment to the 10b51 plan in february involved either lowering that threshold or installing a trigger price” silverman said in his report “that’s a change in behavior and it’s an opportunistic one” see also apple’s leap into the metaverse could jolt a sputtering market but it won’t happen overnight the sale at recent levels doesn’t necessarily suggest williams thinks apple’s shares are overvalued silverman told marketwatch but it rather suggests they may be fairly valued apple didn’t respond to a marketwatch request for comment on the stock sale or what was changed in the february modification to williams’ 10b51 plan williams still owns a stake of 489816 apple shares worth nearly 80 million based on current levels apple shares are up about 22 so far in 2023 as were they at the close of trading march 21 the last full session before williams began selling stock