Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Receives Buy Rating from Needham & Company LLC

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reiterated by Needham & Company LLC in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $260.00 target price on the iPhone maker’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target indicates a potential upside of 38.02% from the company’s current price.

Several other research firms also recently commented on AAPL. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Apple from $260.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research note on Friday, March 14th. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Apple from $295.00 to $300.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday. DA Davidson set a $290.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Bank of America lowered their target price on shares of Apple from $265.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating, twenty-one have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Apple has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $245.26.

Apple Stock Down 7.3 %

Shares of AAPL stock opened at $188.38 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.92, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26. Apple has a 12 month low of $164.08 and a 12 month high of $260.10. The stock has a market cap of $2.83 trillion, a P/E ratio of 29.90, a P/E/G ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $229.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $233.07.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The iPhone maker reported $2.40 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.36 by $0.04. Apple had a return on equity of 160.83% and a net margin of 24.30%. On average, research analysts expect that Apple will post 7.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Timothy D. Cook sold 108,136 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $223.65, for a total value of $24,184,616.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 3,280,295 shares in the company, valued at approximately $733,637,976.75. This represents a 3.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 38,822 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $223.67, for a total value of $8,683,316.74. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 179,158 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $40,072,269.86. This represents a 17.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 182,451 shares of company stock valued at $40,818,720 over the last three months. 0.06% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Apple

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Apple in the 4th quarter worth about $46,868,648,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Apple by 20,372.7% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 94,347,510 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $219,829,700,000 after acquiring an additional 93,886,664 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Apple by 10.6% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 584,010,284 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $136,074,372,000 after acquiring an additional 55,935,105 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Apple by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,395,785,512 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $349,532,608,000 after acquiring an additional 49,168,843 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Apple by 23,555.4% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 21,055,240 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $5,272,653,000 after purchasing an additional 20,966,232 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 67.73% of the company’s stock.

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.