Apple’s New CEO Just Sold $8.5 Million of Stock Omor Ibne Ehsan Wed, October 7, 2026 at 9:20 AM EDT 4 min read AAPL +0.53% Trade Apple on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
Ternus sold $8.5 million of AAPL under a pre-scheduled Rule 10b5-1 plan and still holds more stock after 99,878 RSUs vested.
Tim Cook and Deirdre O'Brien sold $64 million and $15.5 million respectively on the same day, reflecting a shared company-wide vesting calendar.
Apple's Q3 revenue rose 16% to $109 billion with EPS of $2.02 beating the $1.89 estimate, though the stock trades at 43 times trailing earnings.
Read More: Learn 7 ways to generate income with a $1,000,000+ portfolio (sponsor)
Chief executive John Ternus sold 25,412 shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) on October 2, 2026, for about $8.46 million, at prices between $331.38 and $334.05. The Form 4 filed October 5 shows his first reported open-market sale since the former head of hardware engineering replaced Tim Cook, now Executive Chair, on September 1, 2026.
The sale followed a routine annual vest under a pre-set trading plan and left Ternus with more Apple stock than before. Shares closed at $333.63 on October 6, up 0.22%.
A restricted stock unit (RSU) vests into actual stock on a set date. On October 1, 99,878 units from a 2023 performance award vested on a schedule fixed years earlier.
Vesting counts as taxable income whether or not anything is sold. Apple withheld 49,054 shares, which the filing describes as "Shares withheld by Apple to satisfy tax withholding requirements on vesting of RSUs."
Withholding is a tax payment made in shares, so those shares are excluded from the $8.46 million figure. Adding them in would overstate the size of the sale. Ternus then sold 25,412 shares, half of what remained.
If you've saved over $1,000,000, this guide is for you. The last thing you want in retirement is to run out of money, you want your money to generate lasting income while you enjoy your life.
Now you can learn the strategies wealthy retirees use to fund their retirement with The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income from Fisher Investments. Download the guide today! (sponsor)
The filing says the trades ran under a plan Ternus adopted on May 21, 2026, under SEC Rule 10b5-1. That rule lets insiders fix future trades ahead of time, so the sale follows the plan and the executive does not decide it based on what he knows that day. Because insiders who adopt these plans may know material information at the time, the adoption date matters more than the execution date, and Cook adopted this plan months before the sale.
Under a plan he adopted May 28, 2026, Cook sold 191,753 shares for about $63.8 million after 374,541 units vested, and he still holds 3,237,843 shares. Senior vice president Deirdre O'Brien sold 46,389 shares for about $15.5 million.
Multiple executives selling after one company-wide vest shows a shared pay calendar. The awards paid above target because Apple's three-year total shareholder return was 90.67%, ranking in the 76th percentile of the S&P 500 Index.
On any Form 4, start with the transaction code: S is an open-market sale, F is tax withholding, M is a unit conversion. Look for a Rule 10b5-1 plan footnote and adoption date, then check shares owned after the transaction.
The sale says little about the business, because fiscal third-quarter revenue rose 16.4% to $109.42 billion, and EPS of $2.02 beat the $1.89 estimate.
Apple trades at 43 times trailing earnings. About $0.11 of that quarter's EPS came from tariff refunds that will not repeat.
Still, net income grew 27.1% and Services brought in $30.74 billion. Growth like that is rare for a company worth about $4.87 trillion, and it strengthens the long-term case.
The test is the next earnings report, expected in late October. If revenue keeps growing by double digits without help from tariff refunds, the case holds. Closing above the $345.34 52-week high would confirm it.
If you've saved over $1,000,000, this guide is for you. The last thing you want in retirement is to run out of money, you want your money to generate lasting income while you enjoy your life.
Now you can learn the strategies wealthy retirees use to fund their retirement with The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income from Fisher Investments. Download the guide today! (sponsor)
Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.
