Morgan Stanley Reaffirms “Overweight” Rating for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Morgan Stanley restated their overweight rating on shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) in a research report report published on Friday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $273.00 price target on the iPhone maker’s stock.

AAPL has been the topic of several other reports. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Apple to $275.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. StockNews.com downgraded Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Evercore ISI reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $250.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research report on Thursday, September 26th. UBS Group reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $236.00 price target on shares of Apple in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. Finally, KeyCorp downgraded shares of Apple from a “sector weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $200.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Friday, October 25th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $236.78.

Apple Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ AAPL opened at $248.13 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $232.50 and a 200 day simple moving average of $223.41. Apple has a 52 week low of $164.07 and a 52 week high of $250.80. The stock has a market cap of $3.75 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.81, a PEG ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.51, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.87.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last posted its 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. The company had revenue of $94.93 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $94.52 billion. Apple had a net margin of 23.97% and a return on equity of 152.94%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.46 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Apple will post 7.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Apple Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Investors of record on Monday, November 11th were paid a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.40%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. Apple’s dividend payout ratio is 16.45%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Apple

In other news, insider Chris Kondo sold 4,130 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $228.87, for a total value of $945,233.10. Following the sale, the insider now owns 15,419 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,528,946.53. The trade was a 21.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 61,019 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.20, for a total transaction of $13,802,497.80. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 187,043 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $42,309,126.60. This trade represents 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 three months. Company insiders own 0.06% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of AAPL. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Apple by 20,372.7% in 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 purchasing an additional 93,886,664 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in Apple by 10.6% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 584,010,284 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $136,074,372,000 after buying an additional 55,935,105 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Apple by 6.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 333,857,500 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $77,542,863,000 after acquiring an additional 20,483,787 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its position in Apple by 5.3% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 363,859,362 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $84,779,231,000 after acquiring an additional 18,224,005 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB acquired a new stake in Apple in the 1st quarter valued at about $3,026,492,000. 67.73% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.