ARM's shares have had an amazing run for the past couple of years. While they peaked at over $40 during the dotcom bubble (we use the NASDAQ listing to keep the currency consistent with the rest of our list), they had trundled along at an average of around $5 since then.
If you had bought ARM shares on 23 January 2009 they would have cost you $3.48. If you had sold them a week ago, you would have experienced a more than five times multiple on your investment.
A bunch of ARM senior executives seem to have had precisely that idea as revealed in an investor press release issued by ARM early last week. Six execs ranging from president Tudor brown to marketing EVP Ian Drew all flogged a bunch of shares between 9 and 13 September. We've enjoyed a drink or two with both Brown and Drew in the past, and we'll certainly be insisting the beers are on them next time we meet.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, investors reacted swiftly to this news, presumably reasoning that ARM's share price is near a mid-term peak and now is a good time to sell. The shares opened on Tuesday down over four percent on the previous day's close, but recovered much of that over the course of the week.
The big gainer last week was Oracle, which reported better than expected first quarter profits, but a lot of other tech companies had a good week.
| Company | Listing | Share price 31/8/10 | Share price 5/9/10 | Share price 12/9/10 | Share price 19/9/10 | 7-day change | Market cap (bn) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD | AMD | 5.78 | 6.09 | 5.81 | 6.12 | 5.3% | 4.13 |
| Apple | AAPL | 242.50 | 258.77 | 263.41 | 275.37 | 4.5% | 251.57 |
| ARM | ARMH | 15.76 | 17.22 | 18.66 | 18.34 | -1.7% | 8.07 |
| Avnet | AVT | 23.18 | 25.47 | 24.91 | 25.83 | 3.7% | 3.92 |
| Cisco | CSCO | 20.32 | 21.04 | 20.62 | 21.86 | 6.0% | 124.86 |
| Dell | DELL | 12.02 | 12.59 | 12.06 | 12.45 | 3.2% | 24.21 |
| GOOG | 452.69 | 470.30 | 476.14 | 490.15 | 2.9% | 156.21 | |
| HP | HPQ | 38.56 | 40.34 | 38.28 | 39.14 | 2.2% | 88.76 |
| IBM | IBM | 123.40 | 127.58 | 127.99 | 130.19 | 1.7% | 164.21 |
| Ingram Micro | IM | 14.87 | 16.14 | 15.83 | 16.08 | 1.6% | 2.52 |
| Intel | INTC | 17.96 | 18.43 | 17.97 | 18.81 | 4.7% | 104.73 |
| Microsoft | MSFT | 23.64 | 24.29 | 23.85 | 25.22 | 5.7% | 218.24 |
| Nokia | NOK | 8.56 | 9.25 | 9.94 | 9.96 | 0.2% | 37.30 |
| Nvidia | NVDA | 9.64 | 9.90 | 10.07 | 10.55 | 4.8% | 6.06 |
| Oracle | ORCL | 22.02 | 22.92 | 25.05 | 27.48 | 9.7% | 138.12 |
| Qualcomm | QCOM | 38.29 | 40.38 | 40.42 | 42.53 | 5.2% | 68.27 |
| Tech Data | TECD | 36.38 | 39.46 | 38.21 | 38.84 | 1.6% | 1.81 |
| Dow | .DJI | 10009.73 | 10447.93 | 10462.77 | 10607.85 | 1.4% | N/A |
| FTSE 100 | .FTSE | 5150.11 | 5428.15 | 5501.64 | 5508.45 | 0.1% | N/A |
| NASDAQ | .IXIC | 2119.97 | 2233.75 | 2242.48 | 2315.61 | 3.3% | N/A |
