Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer is the latest insider to sell shares of the company’s stock. He revealed in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that he had sold 25,000 shares at price of around $47 per share. He now holds nearly 609,000 shares of his company’s stock.
Other insiders who have unloaded shares recently include Facebook Chief Accounting Officer Jas Athwal, who filed his sale of 500 shares on Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who sold some and gave away others. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) director Marc Andreessen’s venture capital firm sold a sizeable chunk of its stake nearly a month ago, dumping more than 2 million shares.
Will Facebook join the S&P 500?
It’s pretty common for insiders of major public companies to sell shares when the price reaches a certain point. Shares could go higher, however, if UBS analysts are right that the company is a shoe-in to join the S&P 500. At this point, shares of Facebook are down less than 1%.
Koch Industries is expected to complete its acquisition of Molex Incorporated (NASDAQ:MOLX) on Dec. 9. Molex is currently part of the S&P 500, so it will vacate a position on that closely watched index. UBS analyst Trista Rose sees the odds of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) being Molex’s replacement as very high.
Facebook replaces LinkedIn as a leading candidate
The analyst says before October, LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) may have been a better candidate, but negative earnings on a net income GAAP basis technically made the company ineligible to join the S&P 500. If Facebook does indeed join the index, then Rose says it would be one of the biggest additions in history.
Rose actually thinks we could hear the announcement about Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) joining the index as early as today after the markets close at 4 p.m. Eastern.
