Perpetual Ltd Reduces Holdings in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Perpetual Ltd trimmed its stake in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 10.4% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 60,676 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock after selling 7,048 shares during the period. Perpetual Ltd’s holdings in Apple were worth $14,138,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Granite Investment Partners LLC grew its position 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 buying an additional 7,606 shares during the last quarter. Truist Financial Corp grew its position in shares of Apple by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 6,994,703 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $1,473,224,000 after buying an additional 126,210 shares during the last quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Apple by 5.2% in the 2nd quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,928,110 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $406,099,000 after buying an additional 95,235 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in Apple by 34.9% during the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 200,214 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $46,650,000 after purchasing an additional 51,842 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bellwether Advisors LLC grew its position in Apple by 387.3% during the 2nd quarter. Bellwether Advisors LLC now owns 24,349 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $5,128,000 after purchasing an additional 19,352 shares during the last quarter. 60.41% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have issued reports on AAPL. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $205.00 to $212.92 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Oppenheimer reissued a “buy” rating and set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $260.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research report on Friday, November 1st. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Apple from $186.00 to $184.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating, twenty-two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $235.25.

Insider Buying and Selling at Apple

In other news, CEO Timothy D. Cook sold 223,986 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $224.46, for a total value of $50,275,897.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 3,280,180 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $736,269,202.80. This represents a 6.39 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 61,019 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $226.20, for a total value of $13,802,497.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 187,043 shares in the company, valued at $42,309,126.60. The trade was a 24.60 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 408,170 shares of company stock worth $92,007,745 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.06% of the company’s stock.

Apple Stock Down 0.1 %

AAPL stock opened at $234.93 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.51, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.55 trillion, a P/E ratio of 38.64, a P/E/G ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a 50-day moving average of $228.71 and a 200-day moving average of $219.12. Apple Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $164.07 and a fifty-two week high of $237.49.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The iPhone maker reported $1.64 earnings per share (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 business had revenue of $94.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $94.52 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.46 earnings per share. Apple’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Apple Inc. will post 7.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Apple Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Investors of record on Monday, November 11th were issued a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.43%. Apple’s payout ratio is presently 16.45%.

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.