Did You Catch Apple's 'Fat Finger' Spike To $110?

One blink may have been all it took to miss two 4.5 percent spikes in Apple Inc AAPL’s share price this morning on what some are hypothesizing was a pair of “fat finger” market buys.
 

At around 10 AM EST this morning, Apple twice jumped from around $106 per share to above $110.50 on heavy volume within one second of trading. For the rest of the trading day, shares have ranged mostly between $106 and $108 per share.
 

Apple is holding a special product release event today, and already speculators are wondering if the price spikes are a positive indication of things to come for Apple’s stocks. Together, the two buys represented around 1150 shares of Apple. At $110.50 per share, that means that someone may have placed a single $127,075 bet that today’s event will be big news for Apple.

Related Link: How Has Apple Stock Historically Traded Following March Product Events?

While a six-figure buy may seem like a large bet for many retail investors, it is only a drop in the bucket for a stock with the average volume of Apple. That begs the question of why the buyer seemed to be in such a hurry to get his or her shares at any price.

One likely explanation is that the trade was a “fat finger” buy in which an inexperienced or sloppy trader inadvertently placed his or her large buy order at market price rather than setting the trade as a limit order.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.