News

The Great Cash Out: Billionaires Selling Stock

Miguel Rosas, Writer • March 8, 2024

Recently, many known and rich business people have been selling their stock for billions and millions of dollars. Notably, Jeff Bezos sold over $8.5 billion of his Amazon stock. Some other CEOs have sold high amounts of stock when they have never done it before or haven’t in years. The majority of these instances of selling stock is a result of a trading plan called Sec Rule 10b5-1 which allows for the stock to be automatically sold when it reaches enough money. Another speculated reason for the sudden selling of stock is the result of them selling stock to prepare for the election, possibly affecting the stock market. Also it is suspected that the CEOs are preparing for tax breaks from the Trump Administration.

A photo of the stock market. Many rich CEOs have recently sold their stocks for millions and billions of dollars.

Jeffery Bezos is planning to purchase the United Launch Alliance. With Jeff Bezos and his company Blue Origin owning ULA, It could be a competitor against Elon Musk and SpaceX. Sophomore Zach Sanchez said, “I think Jeff Bezos could buy ULA to compete with Elon.”

It does make sense for Bezos to try to be a competitor to other space companies because space discovery is considered to be the future of humanity and Bezos very well could want to hop on the trend.

Jeff Bezos at the Los Angeles Air Force Base speaking to important people from Fort MacArthur relating to Air Force space command. Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin and may have plans to purchase the United Launch Alliance. (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service)

Jeff Bezos plans to move to Miami, which will allow him to avoid a state level tax and keep more money. Jeff Bezos likely sold the stock due to how convenient it was that Amazon stock was going to exceed the 10b5-1 plan and was going to keep more money by moving to Florida and not dealing with extra taxes. As for the other CEOs, the most reasonable explanation for the sudden selling of stock is the 10b5-1 trading plan limit being exceeded. It is still puzzling why people like Jamie Dimon are selling stock as they are pretty late to do it. “They are trying to back off of the company because they know they will lose money,” said Freshman Kole Ivancic.

This is a plausible assumption because If the CEOs think that they might begin to lose money then they will sell before it decreases. This idea is a main fundamental of stock trading and could be easy.

Apart from the 10b5-1 plan, the reason all of these powerful people are selling their stock will remain a mystery until they publicly reveal why.

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About the Contributor

Miguel Rosas, Staff Writer

Miguel Rosas is a Freshman at Santa Rosa Academy. He has been attending SRA for four years and is 14 years old. This is his first year as a journalist. He is currently on the Track and Field team and has been playing for two years, but his favorite sport is boxing. As of now, he is a member of the business pathway and his favorite class is art. Miguel likes to be outside, most of the time he will be skating on his skateboard. When he is not outside, he likes to play video games.