Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Given Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirty-six research firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, eleven have issued a hold recommendation, twenty-two have assigned a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $235.25.

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $285.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research note on Monday, September 9th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Loop Capital lowered their target price on Apple from $300.00 to $275.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Raymond James boosted their price target on Apple from $200.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $205.00 to $212.92 in a research note on Monday, October 7th.

Insider Activity

In other Apple news, CFO Luca Maestri sold 59,305 shares of Apple stock in a transaction on Friday, October 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.52, for a total value of $13,433,768.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 107,788 shares in the company, valued at approximately $24,416,137.76. The trade was a 35.49 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Timothy D. Cook sold 223,986 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $224.46, for a total transaction of $50,275,897.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 3,280,180 shares in the company, valued at approximately $736,269,202.80. This represents a 6.39 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 408,170 shares of company stock worth $92,007,745. 0.06% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Apple

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Granite Investment Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 2.7% in the 2nd quarter. Granite Investment Partners LLC now owns 289,421 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $60,958,000 after purchasing an additional 7,606 shares during the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp boosted its stake in Apple by 1.8% in the second quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 6,994,703 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $1,473,224,000 after acquiring an additional 126,210 shares during the last quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Apple by 5.2% during the 2nd quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,928,110 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $406,099,000 after acquiring an additional 95,235 shares during the period. Bellwether Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Apple by 387.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bellwether Advisors LLC now owns 24,349 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $5,128,000 after acquiring an additional 19,352 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Gentry Private Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Apple in the 2nd quarter valued at $876,000. 60.41% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Apple Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of Apple stock opened at $229.00 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $227.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $217.40. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.51. Apple has a twelve month low of $164.07 and a twelve month high of $237.49. The stock has a market cap of $3.46 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.24.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The iPhone maker reported $1.64 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.04. Apple had a return on equity of 152.94% and a net margin of 23.97%. The firm had revenue of $94.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $94.52 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.46 EPS. Apple’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Apple will post 7.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Apple Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 11th were paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.44%. Apple’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.45%.

Apple Company Profile

Apple Inc designs, manufactures, and markets smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories worldwide. The company offers iPhone, a line of smartphones; Mac, a line of personal computers; iPad, a line of multi-purpose tablets; and wearables, home, and accessories comprising AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, and HomePod.