Pfizer's CEO sold on November 9th, on a day the stock closed at $37.14. It peaked last week (the 8th) at $42.56, and closed today at $37.84, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
His trade was another pretty obvious inside trade (timed the announcement of their successful trials with the scheduled sale)
It was a sale that had been scheduled months previously, and it should by now be obvious that the trial really was successful!
I don't know about this sale in specific, but isn't it a common trick for execs to schedule sales in advance and then cancel if it turns out not to be the right time to sell?
No, the SEC also considers that illegal insider trading. They actively monitor for this "trick" and aggressively pursue an investigation if there isn't a very good reason for a scheduled trade to be cancelled.
You think it's hard to schedule a well timed press release in a way that works in well with your predetermined share sales?
So he didn't know this was the date that the trail results would be announced months previously?
This chain of thought would make sense if the press release were overly optimistic or otherwise misleading... But he didn't even sell at the peak?
Or he could've influenced the announce date to coincide with his sale.