Who can blame a company executive, a principal shareholder, for dumping his stock when he knows it’s only a matter of time that his company is going bust, when your major client decides not to do business with you? It’s a rhetorical question for sure, the money is almost in the bank, all you have to do is deposit it, right?

Well, that’s exactly what happened with both the CEO and COO of GT Advanced (GTAT) once they learned that their sapphire production did not meet Apple’s technical and financial goals. They ran to the teller window and cashed in their chips.

Should they have held onto the shares and watched their wealth just get snatched from them? How do you explain that to your significant other? How do you explain what you’re doing to your employees, who probably hold a bunch of shares too? Do you even tell your employees, or keep it hush hush? If you tell some line worker, the news is bound to leak, then the gig is up, and you might as well go down with the ship.

By the way, the CEO sold stock the day before the public announcement came that Apple would not use them. His name is Thomas Gutierrez; the COO’s name is Daniel Squiller. Not that it matters.