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Netshare and ATT
Something tells me Netshare's app is going to be a pretty popular one on the torrents, lol.
Big Brother strikes?
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/08/01/what-happened-to-netshare
What a brave call!
I gotta say, it takes some real guts to declare a bottom more than 2 weeks after the fact, and then tell come out and tell people to buy a handful of banks after they're up 80%.
Heh. The guy may be a buffoon when it comes to market calls, but he's not stupid when it comes to being a salesman and self-promoter.
"If your port goes ... Hunh?"
Poorly worded on my part? If the monitor on my iMac croaks, exactly what good does it do me that I've got a port I could hang an external off? I've still got to send the whole iMac back to be repaired. ACD croaks, I plug in a spare monitor while the ACD is off being repaired.
I can certainly understand why AIOs are a nice solution for you. What I can't understand is why you seem to think the reasons AIOs are not the right solution for others are so marginal.
For you, hanging external optical drives, etc is fine, apparently (although I have a hard time reconciling that with the cable and clutter argument). I suck it up and accept it, but it's second-rate in my world. Can I cart my iMac to an Apple Store and have them charge me a 500% premium for a new drive? Sure. But I'd rather order exactly what I want, have it delivered to my door overnight, replace the thing myself and skip the drive, the hassle, and the ripoff charges.
At any rate, I wish you seemed as supportive and tolerant of others' balance of the various aspects of ownership as we are of your own interest in not being straightjacketed to a noisy case, cables, crawling under desks (speaking of thin gruel, seriously, how much more frequently do you crawl under desks of your towers than your AIOs?), etc.
p.s. It's great you've got the old G4 in service as a file server. But surely you'd admit if it was tied to the ACD, you'd have lost some benefit from the ACD, that you still have as things stand.
external monitor port in case of emergency?
Don't see how that helps much. If your monitor goes, the port goes with it, as does the computer. You're still out the PC.
True, for those working in a thin-client setting, it's no loss. Of course, not all of us work in that sort of environment. In fact, I'd say that's a pretty small minority of people buying iMacs.
I still haven't heard whether you feel like you'd be missing out on using your 22" ACD if it had been force-tethered to the 1999 (or earlier) PC it originally served?
BTW and FWIW, if Apple had designed the iMac with any genuine measure of self-serviceability, I think a fair amount of the straight-jacketing could be eliminated. Again, thin client environments could care less. But there's no excuse, IMO, to sell someone a $2,000 desktop PC/monitor that the user cannot easily upgrade the hard drive and optical drive. Unless, of course, the entity doing the selling profits from artificially forced obsolescence.
replace the screen?
No, you can't independently upgrade either the monitor or the PC. If I have a problem with the integrated monitor on my iMac, of course I can service it. Or I guess I should say, I can sacrifice my PC and have it serviced by Apple and be out of business for however long that takes. Some people don't want to have their PC out of action if a monitor goes down. Some people would rather not cart the entire PC with the monitor or surrender its contents with data that legally or otherwise can't be out of their control without being encrypted - a major PIA to say the least. (This is true of any use in the medical profession in the US).
If instead of this iMac 24, I had a headless box + 24" monitor, and I decided I needed a 30" monitor and would like to ship the 24" monitor to my nephew because he's gotten into multi-media work, I could do that. With the iMac, I cannot.
So ... where is the 1999 era (or earlier) PC that originally was paired with your 22" ACD? And wouldn't it be a shame if that 22" ACD wasn't there in use because it was glued to the originally paired PC?
And yet ironically, yofal
You have indirectly demonstrated one of the reasons some people prefer not to have monitor and PC force-tied in an AIO. While your 1999 22" ACD (one of my favorite designs) is perfectly serviceable, no doubt the PC from 1999 could not possibly meet the demands of the current environment. If that beautiful 22" ACD had been glued to the PC, you'd have had to replace it. Unnecessarily. Prematurely. For no good reason.
"Hell, even I ended up ..."
And I'm typing away on an iMac 24, lol. A fine machine, indeed. I guess we'll never know whether Apple would be making a tiny amount more, a boatload more, or something in between if it filled that gap in the product lineup. Regardless, I see more upside than downside in satisfying whatever slice of the customer base would be best served by such a machine, and from taking the marginal additional profit.
thx yofal
I guess I'm of the opinion that Apple's durable differentiators are everything BUT the hardware. For me, it's all about the software (and its integration with the hardware). I have a hard time believing Apple would suffer in the least even if erected flashing neon lights in every Apple Store saying "we use the exact same Intel gizzards as Dell".
But I'll withhold judgment until we see what we get. If going with more and more proprietary MoBo/chipset design can really deliver meaningful differentiation, then I s'pose I can take the medicine. But I didn't like the looks of how far Apple got out there on the MacBook Air. Does anyone even talk about the MB Air any more? I see a ton of Apple stuff out in the wild these days. Made me smile to see quite a number of iPhones scattered around my section last night at the ballgame (where tomm's Mets put a butt-whoopin' on the Marlins, lol). But I've been surprised not to see a MB Air in the wild yet.
As for the iPhone business, Google's struggles with Android and today's revelation from Garmin (look out below!) that the NuviPhone is more vaporware than reality, only serve to reinforce how strong Apple's first-mover advantage is. The more I reflect on the iPhone 3G, the more I think this is really not Rev B, but Rev A2 -- the phone Apple wanted to release all along as its entry into the market. I look forward with great anticipation to seeing what Apple is able to do in the real Rev B. The sooner the better. Taking maximum advantage of the first-mover window will have a lot to do with how much market share Apple ultimate gobbles up.
AIOs are "right" for many
For others, not so much. For some, a laptop plus large external monitor, extended keyboard and mouse are "right". For others, not so much. For some, a Mac Mini plus external monitor is "right," for others, not so much. This is a statement of the obvious, of course.
One thing we know, if there is demand for something, and one company steadfastly refuses to acknowledge and meet the demand, eventually the demand will be met by someone else. Apple is nothing if not stubborn in its insistence that it will supplant its own judgment for that of the marketplace and customer base in some instances. Jobs, and by extension Apple, has always had an arrogance that customers are often too "stupid" to know what would be best for them.
All depends on one's philosophy, but I tend to think that sort of arrogance, no matter how well-meaning, no matter how well-informed, eventually leads to poor outcomes.
OT: socialization of loss is the principal function of society?
The founders of this nation and society modeled it on the theories of Aquinas, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, et al. A sort of conglomerate of natural law theory and social contract. Socialization of loss was not a primary or even significant element.
That is not to say socialization of loss hasn't later been woven into our expanded social contract and into the laws that govern us.
But to expand it in the manner it has been expanded by the most liberal is what drives many people away from meritorious shared loss. When you choose to lump together genuine "there but for the grace of god" misfortune, like impacts from catastrophic weather events, disease, etc., with the sort of greed-driven, selfish, entirely optional, actions of individuals, you lose the support of the overwhelming majority of fair-minded, decent people who would be inclined to extend personal generosity to others suffering the former sort of genuine misfortune.
Expecting me to think it's a good thing that someone with identical income and wealth went out and lied on a mortgage application, leveraged themselves to the hilt and spent themselves in an orgy of selfish consumption, lived beyond their means, occupied a dwelling 3x the size, and now thinks I should have to pay to bail them out, is crazy. And, frankly, offensive.
If that's the game you want, then how about I go borrow a million bucks tomorrow, "invest" it in a bunch of super high risk, super high reward options. If I hit the jackpot, I'll pay the million back and take the $10 or $20 million and camp out on a tropical island. If I go bust, I'll send you the million dollar IOU to the lending institution and you can pay it back. Because, after all, there but for the grace of god, go you. It could just as easily have been you making the same "mistake".
"could jeopardize ... lightweight virtualization solutions"
I wonder if part of the thinking isn't Apple wanting to make sure its OS is locked down to Apple-only hardware. The Hackintosh types and the clone challengers clearly continue to make incremental progress, and it seems only reasonable to assume at some point, somebody out there will start distributing EFI patches matched to specific Dell or other manufacturer models.
Personally, I think the better way for Apple to combat this would be to give the market what it's clearly asking for -- a customizable, non-AIO desktop line to fill the $1,000-$1,800 gap. It's not a small gap, it's a gaping, grand canyon sized monstrosity.
Incidentally, although Apple refuses to break out sales data for models, the data it does provide can hardly cover up the basic fact that the market for the MacPro as currently designed, configured, and PRICED, is a fraction of a fraction of a rounding error of a niche. And that niche was pretty much exhausted after the first year the MacPro was introduced.
RIM racing to catch up
Development photos of the RIM Thunder
http://blackberrysync.com/2008/07/blackberry-thunder-exclusive-shots-meet-the-media-player
http://blackberrysync.com/category/blackberry/thunder-blackberry
The forthcoming competition between RIM, Apple, Google and the Nokia/Symbian group is going to make the next 24 months a very exciting time in the handheld space.
Doubtless Apple will drop a better camera and optics into its next iPhone. Doubtless Apple is hard at work to deliver video-conferencing in a future iPhone. But there is the nagging question of storage. It seems Apple will stick with the embedded/non-swappable battery. But will it continue to lock out removable/replaceable memory? I hope not. I understand the battery choice. But trying to drive a replacement market by designed obsolescence based on memory seems a bad choice?
On the quality of apps in the App Store ...
"Being stupid isn't illegal, and being crap isn't a disqualifier for being included on the App Store. Maybe it needs to be, because no matter how swank your store is, nobody likes to step in poo."
http://www.atomicwang.org/motherfucker/Index/93E914B5-89ED-4D46-8EFD-9AACC6BAE818.html
"Maybe Apple plans pissing away its profits ..."
"Maybe Apple plans pissing away its profits re-inventing the wheel already used by competitors, available from OEM vendors in the form of commodity parts."
While I'm willing to withhold judgment until rumor and speculation are replaced with an analyzable reality, I do get a very queasy feeling from the notion of Apple reverting to the company that wanted all the elements of its hardware to be proprietary and unique. It's one of the primary elements that once upon a time made Apple an unprofitable and struggling company.
Doubtless, IF it turns out this rumor is true, Apple will have a rationale that can be boiled down to: the extra cost and risk of divergent development paths is outweighed by the benefit in product differentiation and performance. The question then will be, will Apple's judgment be validated by the marketplace or not.
The great fear, of course, is that it will not. And I believe it's this fear, more than any other, that's been causing AAPL to underperform the past few days, and is weighing on the stock. More than fears of Jobs' health. More than fears of a flagging retail environment dragging on Apple sales.
It looks like we've got at least 6-8 weeks before we'll have anything concrete to analyze.
Personally, I was thrilled by the move to Intel and standardized guts. Unless there's an overwhelming benefit to mucking with that, I'd rather see Apple concentrate on its core business and core pathway to differentiated computing experiences: SOFTWARE.
Congrats Mr. Guinea Pig!
I assume this will set sail with you soon? Let us know what think of the GPS and whether you find any interesting location, location aware, or maritime apps.
Round-up of the iPhone competition
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/the-iclones-a-q.html
Thx for sharing that, yofal
Compare and contrast indeed.
Clearly Apple wants to get iPhone into business. It's made a sizable investment in that direction. It knows that reliability and accountability are of critical importance in cracking that nut. Which is what makes the response, or non-response, so sad.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but drib-drabbing about this on a daily basis in a blog seems and idiotic approach. A single letter from Steve Jobs would have worked wonders, it seems to me. A straightforward recitation of the basic facts (a la Amazon's), followed by an apology, together with a pledge of redoubled effort and recitation of the forthcoming actions to be taken, and a promise to report back as soon as the problem is fully fixed (with perhaps a reference to the aforementioned daily confessional blog), with the usual Steve charm attached might have created lemonade from lemons. Hell, even the people in the press who don't exactly adore Steve, still seem to respond to his charms when he steps out and mans up.
Somewhere, though, RIMM is praying Apple changes nothing. And thanking the gods for this gift, that in their wildest dreams I doubt they could have imagined.
"They need someone who understands reliability"
This is not a low-level engineering problem, this is a management problem. And the buck stops in Jobs' office. .Mac/MobileMe has been embarrassingly short of basic industry standards for more than EIGHT YEARS now.
Making some low-level guy write a blog for "penance" and performance incentive has nothing to do with the real problem -- Apple clearly hasn't gotten the right manager tasked with oversight of that service. I've got a sneaking suspicion that this too falls under the domain of Scott Forstall.
"Sounds like the big 'server' blew up"
... and a miracle occurred -- only 1% of .Mac/MobileMe customers had any change in service! (Poor David Pogue, how did each and every one of those 1% happen to choose to e-mail him about it, lol!)
Heh. Between Jobs & Co. lying about his having had a second surgery, and Apple lying its butt off on the 1%, somehow the latter seems more offensive to me. The former, at least I understand and have some sympathy for the lie (even if I do think it's the wrong policy). The latter, there's just no excuse. Presumably, the purpose of the lie is to leave people with a more favorable impression of Apple. Ironically, it strikes me as more likely to have done the exact opposite. If they'd owned up to the full extent of the outage straightaway and been forthcoming, professional and responsible in their customer communication in the intervening period, I doubt seriously anyone would come away with a worse impression. Instead, they've managed not only to tick people off with the failure to acknowledge and communicate, but they've then taught any of them with a functioning clue, that Apple is willing to lie right to their faces on matters of customer service, warranty, etc. Not that Apple doesn't have a long history of denying, denying, denying, on all sorts of manufacturing flaws, design failures, etc., only to later cave in and admit not only to the screwup, but to the lie and ensuing coverup. But still, there are floods of new customers coming to Apple these days, who are getting their first taste of what Apple's all about. It's a shame there's nobody that can speak truth to Steve's power to tell him on this particular matter, this approach, the emperor has no clothes.
"Is there a debate left?"
Of all people, I would expect a lawyer to know there darned sure will be, lol. You speak as though you know with absolute certainty what constitutes infringement in this instance. I would suggest nobody knows that until/unless it's adjudicated. If it gets to that point.
In the interim. Android and Windows 7 Mobile both have it (multi-touch). That means either both the Google and Microsoft legal teams either believe they've been able to skirt around infringement (or believe there simply is none), or that they've decided they're willing to plough forward even though they believe they're infringing, but figure they'd never get license from Apple, and would prefer to accept a de facto settlement in court.
Even setting aside Microsoft, I somehow think a team full of Google lawyers, at least some of whom specialize in intellectual property and patent law might find a flat dismissal as, to put it mildly, lacking in nuance.
Then again, maybe there's no debate left at all and the entire Google legal team and management is just a bunch of clueless goobers.
"exclusive tech like multitouch"
"I expect that the iPhone-exclusive tech like multitouch won't see really broad adoption until after the patents expire"
Patents? Exclusive? Don't think so. First major phone OS with multitouch, yep. So there is a first mover advantage for now. At least until Android hits the market, and Microsoft rolls out the next version of its Windows Mobile.
Developers, developers, developers, developers ...
Stanford helping incubate iPhone developers (cs193P) ...
http://cs.stanford.edu/courses/schedules/2008-2009.autumn.php
Mossberg does the App Store
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121676167934474867.html
Clear as mud
Was that meant to be funny, intentionally obtuse, both or neither?
Are you projecting SNDK will trade down to $6 before later being acquired at $11?
Good news from ATT's report
First 10 days of iPhone 3G sales were double that of first 10 days of original iPhone.
OT: like deja vu all over again ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/07/22/ST2008072200062.html
"The more I get to know President Putin, the more I get to see his heart and soul ...the more I know we can work together in a positive way".
- Decider-in-Chief
Care to provide the decoder ring for that?
*SNDK* ---> $6 ---> $11 Buyout
Huh?
Looks like choosing Intel
... and resisting any quixotic urge to work with AMD, was the right strategic move. While Intel has piled up cash and focused on power consumption, and dialed in its business, AMD has been off in the weeds, and now finds itself in such trouble it's actually selling off fabs to raise capital.
It would not surprise me in the least if 5 years from now AMD no longer existed. At least not in its current form.
Sad to say, but you could see that train wreck coming
... assuming you weren't emotionally attached to the stock or saddled with analysis based on existing basis of previously purchased holdings.
Been kind of nice not having to endure sylvester running his trap in recent months.
Who's running the show in Redmond?
The emotionally volatile Steve Ballmer. Gates knew how to handle the dance with Jobs. (Whatever his other shortcomings, he never really took the bait). I don't think Ballmer does. His performance around the time of the original iPhone introduction was nothing short of horrifyingly bad. He made every classic mistake in the book before somebody finally got a muzzle on him.
I'll give Jobs an A+ on this. He's punched the buttons and he's gotten under Ballmer's skin, personally. And he's going to get Apple hundreds of millions in free advertising out of the deal, LOL.
The other thing I find hilarious about this forthcoming campaign ... the very point of advertising is to play the sleight of hand game and get the customer to look at the strongest, most attractive features of the product you're trying to sell, not draw attention to the product's weaknesses and failings. Running that ad campaign is only going to reinforce the notion that Microsoft completely screwed the pooch on Vista's introduction, and then go into detail about feature by feature weaknesses.
I think we've got another B-school case study on our hands on how NOT to run a business.
Somewhere Jobs whispering in Ballmer's ear ... "please, please Brer Fox, don't swamp us with that ad campaign" ... and laughing his butt off that Ballmer just doesn't get it.
p.s. I think there's a corollary question to "who's running Microsoft?" ... and that's what advertising and public relations firms are giving Microsoft advice?!!
"fold-over" configuration that I've long thought clunky"
Amen to that. Agreed 100% that Apple will do it right with a "real" tablet. The more I reflect on how Apple chose to refer to the mysterious margin hit in the CC, the more I'm convinced that was NOT a reference to the forthcoming Macbook Pro CPU upgrade, or, as roni suggested, some sort of general price cutting to go after market share generally.
Hope I'm not getting to bullishly hopeful here, but I think we finally get the tablet.
Good news, free advertising ahead
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/07/22/microsoft_offers_first_hints_at_anti_apple_marketing_blitz_for_vista.html
Rarely is it a bad thing when the competition is forced to talk about your product in their advertising.
In Apple's case, it's the ultimate stamp of "legitimacy". Microsoft will spend its dough telling the world it believes Apple is a legitimate and serious competitive alternative. What a gift!
Beyond that, it's going to do Apple the favor of giving it a graceful way to dump the now tired (and for some, tiresome) Mac/PC ad campaign. Doubtless, Microsoft's campaign will beg a response, and doubtless, Apple will have some serious fun putting a smack-fu beating on it with a brand new campaign of its own.
Heh. This should be fun.
"Apple's lack of exploitation of cash"
Even the rather "large" acquisition of PA Semi last quarter couldn't use up half of the positive cash flow from that quarter alone!
You are dead-right. When the core business is growing 25+% and the cash portion is growing at less than 5%, this is poor management of assets, and that's putting it mildly. Having said that, the cash will have its greatest value when this recessionary cycle hits bottom. So one could reasonably argue at this point, it would be best for Apple to simply hang on for another few quarters and then make a series of acquisitions. Had Apple ploughed back even half its positive cash flow in sensible share buybacks over the past 3 years, the stock would be north of $250, trading on the exact same multiple it trades now. That is hardly chump change to shareholders, and its beyond me why there are not more shareholders who aren't a little peeved that they don't have that $100/shr in their pockets.
Ironically, the higher the valuation the market puts on AAPL, the easier it is for Apple to make acquisitions that are immediately accretive to earnings.
Beyond that, though, once we work through the end of the economic cycle and valuations on potential acquisition targets begin to expand, we reach the point where there is no longer a defensible basis for holding that much cash.
The most sensible approach would be for Apple's Board to authorize a very large repurchase of shares, but with no mandate to use up that authorization within a particular time frame, or even to use it up at all.
About that 130/125 spread ...
Will you cash it out now, hold it in hopes you can milk it all the way fully ITM in the coming three weeks, or break the spread, sell the 130s, and hold the 125s naked?
BTW, congrats on nailing that!
"I'd like to hear the bear case"
I'm not going to make a bear case, because I'm not bearish on AAPL in the 140s.
But if you're asking what others might see in the earnings report that was other than rosy, there was plenty of that.
1. The biggest "less than rosy" item is something that was hardly a surprise or unexpected -- the iPod/Music business has not only slowed to low-growth, it has actually rolled over and is in contraction.
iPod Growth Rate => -8% (sequentially)
Music + iPod peripherals and goodies Growth Rate => -7% (sequentially)
Considering that the iPod/Music business is just a hair over 1/3 of Apple's Revenue, it becomes increasingly difficult to produce 30+% growth in the overall business. Is it reasonable to expect Apple can produce a sustained 50% growth rate on the rest of its business?
2. Consumer recession. Despite all the whistling past the graveyard from some here, Apple is NOT immune from recession, nor from a downturns in broader consumer activities. Just look at what the report is telling you about the more "discretionary" part of Apple products and services, notably the accessories and "extras":
iPods => -8%
Music and extras for iPod => -7%
Software, Service, and Other => -5%
If you're a Larry Kudlowite, and you think the economy's seen it's worst and is now on a magnificent upswing from here, then this is of no concern. But if you think there is more to go to sort out residential real estate, the mortgage mess, if you think we've only begun to take our medicine in commercial real estate, if you think the Fed can raise rates late this year or early next year to control inflation, but without any consequence in terms of choking off a sputtering economy, and if you think the banking industry shakeout is far from over, then you might logically figure Apple is going to be affected. Perhaps not to the degree of weaker businesses with less desirable products, but affected nonetheless. Also ... if you think nobody went and used their one-time gov't stimulus rebate checks to buy anything from Apple, then no worries. But if you think they did, then you know the quarter saw some benefit that won't be there next time around.
3. Deceleration of earnings growth rate = compression of multiples
The toughest thing about growth stocks is, when earnings slow, it's a double-whammy. The "fair value" price doesn't decline proportionally, it gets a double-whack as the "fair" multiple is compressed. If you're growing 30%, a multiple of 40 might be appropriate. If you're growing 20%, a multiple of 25 might be appropriate. A year ago, Apple's Q3 sequential q/q growth was +2.8%. This year it was -6.4%. OK, that's a falloff of only 9.2%. But it's only when the signs of slowing growth are only beginning to show that investors can get out ahead of multiple compression. Wait 'til it's plain and obvious to the whole world, and you've already eaten the full multiple compression
4. Jobs' health. Personally, I think this is a bunch of bunk. I think Jobs is perfectly fine and Apple's just being arrogant in refusing to say so. But even still, refusing to set the record straight unequivocally, leaves doubt and some measure of uncertainty, and there's nothing more that markets hate than uncertainty.
5. Retail growth rate is decelerating. There's a bit of the law of large numbers in play here. One of the strong drivers of Apple's very high growth rate the past few years, has been the growth in Retail Stores. When you've got 50, it's pretty easy to grow that part of the business at 50+% a year. When you've got 300, it's tougher. No getting around it, the growth rate of Retail is no longer accretive to earnings rate of growth, it is neutral to earnings growth rate, and could potentially become dilutive.
There's plenty more there, but you get the idea. In a nutshell, there's a perfectly reasonable concern that holding the growth rate of the past few years will be tougher and tougher. Heck, really you can toss all that and just look at the trajectory of earnings by year over year growth rate ...
FY'05 => FY'06 = 46%
FY'06 => FY'07 =>73%
FY'07 => FY'08 (proj) =>33%
FY'08 (proj) => FY'09 (proj) => 22%
And that's assuming FY'09 numbers don't trimmed.
"throwing out a round number ..."
Take your pick ...
FY'07 earnings were $3.93
TTM earnings are $5.12
FY'08 analyst consensus projected earnings are $5.21
FY'09 analyst consensus projected earnings are $6.38
With the current quote of $148.65, pick your p/e ...
FY'07 =>37.8
TTM =>29.0
FY'08 (proj) => 28.5
FY'09 (proj) => 23.3
FWIW, it's likely the '08 number drops by a dime or so, and the '09 consensus gets taken down marginally.
Also, FWIW, we are now only 3 months away from "current year" being FY'09, and getting a fresh set of "forward year" numbers. That tends to give a boost to perceptions of valuation.
No matter what, this morning it's a heck of a lot better to be Apple buying NAND, than SanDisk selling it.
"either inappropriately tone deaf, or ominous"
I think it's the former. Apple has never been a shareholder-friendly company. It's attempted to thrwart shareholder interest in matters of good governance, asset management, and corporate responsiveness and dissemination of information for years. Call it arrogance, call it what you want. But whatever it is, it's nothing new. Nor is it a violation of any law.
What WOULD be a violation of law, is if any executive of Apple (or anyone else for that matter) bought or sold stock while in possession of material information not disclosed to the shareholders.
I wouldn't lose sleep over these rumors.