Needham & Company LLC Reiterates Buy Rating for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Needham & Company LLC reissued their buy rating on shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in a research note released on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $260.00 price target on the iPhone maker’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also commented on AAPL. Moffett Nathanson initiated coverage on Apple in a research report on Monday, August 19th. They set a neutral rating and a $211.00 price objective for the company. Tigress Financial increased their target price on shares of Apple from $245.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 28th. Melius Research reiterated a buy rating and set a $265.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Maxim Group reaffirmed a hold rating and issued a $203.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Cfra boosted their price target on Apple from $240.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $239.17.

Apple Stock Performance

Shares of AAPL opened at $228.20 on Thursday. Apple has a one year low of $164.07 and a one year high of $237.23. The company has a 50-day moving average of $222.41 and a two-hundred day moving average of $200.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.91. The stock has a market cap of $3.50 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.49, a PEG ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 1.24.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The iPhone maker reported $1.40 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.34 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $85.78 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $84.43 billion. Apple had a net margin of 26.44% and a return on equity of 147.15%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.26 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Apple will post 6.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Apple Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 12th were paid a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 12th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.44%. Apple’s dividend payout ratio is presently 15.55%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $206.44, for a total transaction of $20,644,000.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 191,543 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,542,136.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $206.44, for a total transaction of $20,644,000.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 191,543 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $39,542,136.92. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Chris Kondo sold 8,706 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $225.00, for a total value of $1,958,850.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 15,419 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,469,275. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 113,884 shares of company stock worth $23,723,887 in the last quarter. 0.06% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Apple

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Apple by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,318,064,349 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $253,766,929,000 after buying an additional 18,067,216 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Apple during the 4th quarter valued at about $33,912,466,000. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of Apple by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 60,651,275 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $11,677,190,000 after purchasing an additional 2,096,360 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its stake in Apple by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 54,702,300 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $10,531,834,000 after purchasing an additional 1,067,587 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in Apple by 5.5% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 52,981,808 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $11,160,183,000 after purchasing an additional 2,785,807 shares in the last quarter. 60.41% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Apple

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.