The Billion Dollar Bump

When a company achieves greatness, one of the unwelcome side effects is that its leaders become tempted by new challenges elsewhere.So is Apple's triumph in the market going to cause the company to  start bleeding executives?Last week Apple's head of retail, Ron Johnson, announced he was leaving to become CEO of J.C. Penney.When the announcement was made, Johnson's impending arrival prompted a modest run-up in J.C. Penney's stock price.  Well, not so modest, in fact.  The shares went up about 15%, and the market cap ballooned by a full billion dollars, from $6.4 billion to $7.5 billion.Was Johnson astute enough to get his allocation of J.C. Penney equity shares dated to before the announcement?  If he wasn't, those who follow will certainly not the make the same mistake ....Perhaps some day soon Jonathan Ive, the head of Apple's iPod team, will be tapped as the one to resuscitate Nokia.Apple stores are packed these days, and people even line up outside to get their hands on the coveted devices when new products like the iPad are released.  Can Johnson perform the same magic with the staid old clothing retailer?  I look forward to seeing what happens ... and so do the many people who bought the company's stock last week.Here's what a $1 billion bump looks like ... courtesy of Yahoo finance.