Late last year, the CEO of Intel sold millions of dollars in company stock, as CEOs often do. The sale appears to have occurred while developers were reportedly rushing to fix a major security flaw affecting Intel processors made in the last decade.<\/b>
\nLate last year, the CEO of Intel sold millions of dollars in company stock, as CEOs often do. The sale appears to have occurred while developers were reportedly rushing to fix a major security flaw affecting Intel processors made in the last decade.
According to a report published by the Register yesterday, \u201ca fundamental design flaw in Intel\u2019s processor chips has forced a significant redesign of the Linux and Windows kernels to defang the chip-level security bug.\u201d Windows and Linux developers have reportedly been working to address the issue since November.
As our friends at Gizmodo ES pointed out (via Hacker News), Intel\u2019s CEO Brian Krzanich sold roughly $11 million in company stock at the end of November. Counting the employee stock options Krzanich exercised, the CEO unloaded 245,743 shares, leaving him with 250,000 remaining shares\u2014the minimum Krzanich is required to own according to the company\u2019s bylaws, the Motley Fool reporte d.
To be clear, this isn\u2019t proof of some insider-trading conspiracy. Contacted by Gizmodo, an Intel spokesperson called the sale \u201cunrelated,\u201d and said it \u201cwas made pursuant to a pre-arranged stock sale plan (10b5-1) with an automated sale schedule.\u201d
As the Fool reported in mid-December, it\u2019s possible Krzanich sold his shares for a normal, personal reason, like to buy a house. It\u2019s also possible Krzanich is down on some aspect of Intel\u2019s growth prospects. From the Fool\u2019s Ashraf Eassa:
2017 was a turnaround year for Intel\u2019s primary competitor in the client computing space, AMD, and this trend could continue into 2018. And yes! A decade-old security flaw could also cause you to be \u201clukewarm\u201d on any company, couldn\u2019t it?
Intel acknowledged the exploits in a press release this afternoon. \u201cRecent reports that these exploits are caused by a \u2018bug\u2019 or a \u2018flaw\u2019 and are unique to Intel products are incorrect,\u201d the statement said. \u201cBased on the analysis to date, many types of computing devices \u2014 with many different vendors\u2019 processors and operating systems \u2014 are susceptible to these exploits.\u201d Intel said it\u2019s \u201cworking closely with many other technology companies, including AMD, ARM Holdings and several operating system vendors, to develop an industry-wide approach to resolve this issue promptly and constructively.\u201d Intel also downplayed performance issues that may be caused by the fix.
This isn\u2019t the first time in recent memory that a top executive has raised eyebrows by dumping stock ahead of bad news. Shortly after Equifax disclosed its enormous data breach affecting 143 million U. S. consumers, the timeline of stock sales by three executives at the company was scrutinized. Later, Equifax said an internal investigation had found that \u201cnone of the four executives had knowledge of the incident when their trades were made.\u201d Often, executives pre-schedule stock sales to avoid any perceived conflicts of interest.
Intel\u2019s stock slipped by more than four percent today during regular trading. Rival AMD\u2019s stock, meanwhile, climbed by more than seven percent. Despite the price drop, Intel\u2019s stock is still trading above where it was when Krzanich disclosed his stock sales.<\/p>\n

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Similarity rank: 3.1<\/div>\n

Sentiment rank: -0.3<\/div>\n

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