Luca Maestri Sells 53,194 Shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Stock

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CFO Luca Maestri sold 53,194 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $174.12, for a total transaction of $9,262,139.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 107,788 shares in the company, valued at $18,768,046.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link.

Apple Stock Down 1.9 %

Shares of AAPL opened at $169.38 on Wednesday. Apple Inc. has a 52 week low of $162.80 and a 52 week high of $199.62. The firm has a market cap of $2.62 trillion, a P/E ratio of 26.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 1.27. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $176.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $182.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.07.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The iPhone maker reported $2.18 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.09 by $0.09. Apple had a net margin of 26.16% and a return on equity of 156.04%. The business had revenue of $119.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $117.99 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.88 EPS. Apple’s quarterly revenue was up 2.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Apple Inc. will post 6.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Apple Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Investors of record on Monday, February 12th were paid a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 9th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.57%. Apple’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 14.95%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AAPL. IFM Investors Pty Ltd grew its position in shares of Apple by 20.0% during the 1st quarter. IFM Investors Pty Ltd now owns 2,615,701 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $456,728,000 after purchasing an additional 435,891 shares in the last quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. grew its position in shares of Apple by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. now owns 240,628 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $42,016,000 after purchasing an additional 1,040 shares in the last quarter. Markel Corp grew its position in shares of Apple by 0.7% during the 1st quarter. Markel Corp now owns 1,206,990 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $210,752,000 after purchasing an additional 8,450 shares in the last quarter. Camden Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Apple by 9.2% during the 1st quarter. Camden Capital LLC now owns 156,364 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $27,305,000 after purchasing an additional 13,200 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Harbor Island Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Apple by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Harbor Island Capital LLC now owns 135,325 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $23,629,000 after purchasing an additional 400 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 60.41% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on AAPL shares. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $189.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Bank of America raised shares of Apple from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $208.00 to $225.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. Loop Capital cut their price objective on shares of Apple from $185.00 to $170.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 1st. Redburn Atlantic cut shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $200.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. Finally, UBS Group reissued a “hold” rating and set a $190.00 price target on shares of Apple in a research report on Monday, March 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating, twenty-one 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 presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $204.08.

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.