GTAT, GTAT and More GTAT

GTAT was certainly in the news on Monday.  Tom Gutierrez, their CEO, was on Fast Money yesterday. He said a couple of things of note. First he said he could not comment on how things are going at new Arizona plant due to gag agreement with AAPL. Interestingly, he commented that was because they liked to "surprise" their competition. So that makes me think that things are further along there than expected and that it may be bigger than expected. In the same vein, he commented that margins are lower on the AAPL business, but that they are forecasting an increase in their solar business in second half of 2014, which is higher margin business => they have a lot going on.  Finally, he was asked about his sale of 200,000+ shares. He said that a disproportionate amount of his net wealth is in GTAT and he is doing it for diversification purposes. He had over 2 million shares, so his interests are certainly closely aligned. In addition, he commented that the sales were through a 10b 5 plan, which has to be done at least a quarter in advance.

Then while driving home, Jim Cramer actually profiled GTAT on Mad Money.  While he did not say buy, buy, buy - he did say that if AAPL is really going to use GTAT for iPhone and iPad screen that the stock would go "much higher". He felt that was too speculative right now and people should wat for a pullback to around $16.

Near the end of the day yesterday when I heard that the CEO would be on FM, I did increase my GTAT holdings by 50% (a sizable investment) at $17.04. I sold that today at $17.54 for a quick 3% gain (still gun shy on these post PXLW). A good trade, but could have waited longer at now over $18. Hard to complain about that though!  I may do swing trades like that a few more times on GTAT if opportunity arises.