Comments on: Report: SEC reviewing Apple's disclosures over Jobs' health

Investigators looking into whether company's handling of information surrounding CEO's health misled investors, according to a Bloomberg report.

[nt007]

The SEC let Madoff get away of bilking investors out of $50 billion and now they are worried about Job's health. Get Real. Some SEC folks need to be fired so they can understand relative priorities.

[Daturze]

When Guilliani cracked down on crime in NYC there were no "minor infractions" that were over looked - every infraction was prosecuted (in theory anyway) and that's the way it has to be with the SEC. Average investors, pension funds all invest in Apple, when Jobs gets sick people lose money. Explain to the 65 year old retiring who has Apple stock why he has to cut back because Jobs isn't at work that the SEC shouldn't look at this. (OK, the whole market is tanking - I'm just making an exaggerated point here). At the end of the day if the people investigating Madoff are on the case nothing will come of this I'm sure! :)

[sanenazok]

Quick question: was anything Madoff did actually subject to the SEC? He marketed a private investment service that turned out to be fraud (a crime of course). Not everything dealing with investments is subject to SEC oversight, which is why the FBI is investigating him rather than the SEC, which can be avoided by structuring the investments a certain way. Would you want the SEC involved if you loan your friends some money? How about the FDA when your mother brews some herbal tea. Lying about a god-like dominator in a publicly traded company is something altogether different.

[stork35]

Please , you must be kidding......................Madoff sits in his apartment and the SEC ( Serious Executive Chumps ) are investigating Steve Jobs health and a great American Co.?

[TomMariner]

The HIPAA act provides for privacy for health records with severe penalties for unauthorized release. You don't have to let anyone including your doctor know without your permission. The SEC on the other hand enforces laws that say you have to dislose anything that would influence the stock price.

So, in the land of lawyers, and particularly with the present Administratino and Congress, we all will have to cope with dueling laws. We all will have to decide what laws we break today to adhere to others.

Obviously if Steve sold Apple short just before his leave was announced, he is trouble, but I think the problem is with the company.

[sanenazok]

Lovely red herring you got there...once I become the charge d'affairs in a publicly traded company whatever privacy laws no longer apply the same way as for a private citizen.

[Everlovin G]

@stork35 and @nt007 and @ Daturze

Maybe our savior, President Obama, will CHANGE the way the SEC works (or doesn't, depending on your perspective).

[How Goes It]

The government is supposedly trying to take the gamble out of PLAYING THE STOCK MARKET. This is impossible. Anyone reading the news should have sense enough to know that Steve's health is tenuous. We hope the best for Steve. But things can change from day to day. And no matter what happens to Steve, who can say if the company will go on to bigger and better things.

I just saw a report on CNBC last night on how Madoff's Ponzi scheme was being reported to the SEC as far back as the late 1990's, when the scam was ONLY a $10,000,000,000 problem. No matter how the rest of the market faired, this guy kept giving dividends of 12% -- no matter what. Get real ---------- yet, the SEC did nothing.

And as far as Barney Frank and his buddies demanding that money be lent to those who need not account for their income --- this is just one more example of the government involved in catastrophe just waiting to happen.

That the SEC has chosen to go after Apple, AGAIN, is getting more than boring. It makes the SEC look so inept in not realizing what they should be concentrating on. Just imagine if they would have paid attention to Madoff back in the 90's. Yet the best they can do right now, is to try and get a successful company like Apple. Go figure.

It goes without saying, that agencies such as the SEC, and Barney Frank's committee, will screw up again and again, and do so big time. So I figure, I don't need to subsidize this kind of incompetence. I need less of it.

As such, my HOPE is in hearing how Counties and States are going bankrupt. That is, government agencies are being forced to downsize or go away. After all, money badly spent, on those who can't get the job done ---- this should be avoided, not rewarded with more hiring and constant government pay raises ------ when many in the private sector are being laid off, or their time cut back.

So if you see me with a smile on my face when I hear of a county or state going bankrupt, realize that to some of us, this is one of our only hopes in seeing REAL CHANGE. I mean, why should Americans pay for this kind of abuse.

[douggro]

So does this mean that if Steve Ballmer gets pneumonia or has a funky bowel movement that Microsoft will be required to disclose that to investors?? I think not..

This obsessive/compulsive reaction that stockholders have about Jobs' health is nuts, and the SEC is buying into it - perhaps as an overcompensation for the DOJ's past-treatment of Microsoft in the IE anti-trust deal? In any case, given the reaction of the stock price whenever rumors about his health circulate, can we really blame him for wanting to both protect his privacy and the value of Apple stock as much as possible? I know I can't.

[bergs331]

"can we really blame him for wanting to both protect his privacy and the value of Apple stock as much as possible?"

If he or Apple are lying about his heath to protect Apple stock then yes, It's illegal.
Proving it, however is another thing