pan,
I've been following this thread all along and think by now it probably belongs in Tilted Paranoia
You obviously disagree with some of the practices of corporate Amerca but IMO you should not have used Steve Jobs as your example. As you have since clarified, this is not about Steve Jobs but that is the only real example you have used.
Your original premise was that the sale of a large amount of stock drives the price down and therefore hurts the stockholders, investors, and all manner of beast and fowl in the universe. As you are probably aware there are strict rules as to when and how executives buy, sell, and otherwise acquire and dispose of stock. These rules are in place to prevent the consequences you describe. You are probably also aware that the AAPL transaction you referred to was a 'non-market' transaction. There was no stock actually bought or sold, only the net effect. The net effect being Jobs gets cash and the gov't. gets their taxes. Agreed, it comes from AAPL's bank account but I'm pretty sure they have the money. Obviously, the BoD awarded Jobs this money for a job well done and I have no doubt that the transaction was structured in such a way as to minimize the amount of taxes paid, both by AAPL and Jobs. As a shareholder, I would expect my BoD to do so.
As we have all agreed, AAPL is Jobs, and Jobs is AAPL. The amount of compensation he recieved works out to 5% of the profits. Seems fair to me. I would encourage everyone to use Yahoo and research AAPL's current financial condition. Not what the stock price is today or yesterday or tomorrow but the overall financial health of the company. Some highlights:
total cash- $8.23 Billion (with a B), total debt- $0, operating cash flow(ttm) - $1.38 Billion, quarterly earnings growth(yoy) - 41.4%.
I used to work for a large Bank and had occasion to have to sell off large blocks of stock to settle estates. There was always the concern that these sales would affect the price of the stock. Say we needed to sell 6 million shares of AAPL. The stock trades 33 million shares every day or 165 MM a week. We would call Goldman, Merrill, and State Street and tell them each that we neede to sell 2 million shares in the next two weeks. This is not a mass 'dumping' of stock. In fact it is about 1.8% of volume for those two weeks. Certainly not enough to move the market. Everything needs to be looked as as a whole and not as an individual transaction or assume it is part of some nefarious scheme. The transactions you read about in EDGAR or other reporting services have already happened.
My premise: The sale of the stock does not move the market, how the market percieves the sale does.
As to the perceptions.....Well, they are exactly that. That is what makes markets.
BTW, I think the discussion has been civil by everyone so far. We all just believe passionately that we are right.