Aristides Capital LLC Lowers Holdings in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Aristides Capital LLC cut its holdings in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 69.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,000 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock after selling 4,600 shares during the quarter. Aristides Capital LLC’s holdings in Apple were worth $421,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in AAPL. Verus Financial Partners Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Apple by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Verus Financial Partners Inc. now owns 16,929 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $3,566,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares during the last quarter. Brown Financial Advisory boosted its holdings in shares of Apple by 3.8% in the second quarter. Brown Financial Advisory now owns 1,364 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $287,000 after purchasing an additional 50 shares during the period. Core Wealth Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Apple by 1.7% during the second quarter. Core Wealth Management Inc. now owns 2,968 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $625,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Lowery Thomas LLC boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 0.7% during the second quarter. Lowery Thomas LLC now owns 7,607 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $1,602,000 after purchasing an additional 50 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Klein Pavlis & Peasley Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of Apple by 1.1% in the 2nd quarter. Klein Pavlis & Peasley Financial Inc. now owns 4,505 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $949,000 after acquiring an additional 51 shares in the last quarter. 60.41% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup upped their price target on Apple to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Moffett Nathanson began coverage on Apple in a report on Monday, August 19th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $211.00 price target for the company. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $205.00 to $212.92 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. KeyCorp cut Apple from a “sector weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $200.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Friday, October 25th. Finally, Bank of America restated a “buy” rating and set a $256.00 target price on shares of Apple in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating, twenty-two have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Apple presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $235.51.

Apple Trading Down 1.4 %

Shares of AAPL stock opened at $225.00 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.51, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.83. Apple Inc. has a 1-year low of $164.07 and a 1-year high of $237.49. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $227.04 and its 200 day moving average price is $215.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.40 trillion, a PE ratio of 37.01, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.24.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last announced its quarterly 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 business had revenue of $94.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $94.52 billion. Apple had a return on equity of 152.94% and a net margin of 23.97%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.46 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Apple Inc. will post 7.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Apple Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 11th were paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.44%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, November 8th. Apple’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.45%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Apple

In other news, COO Jeffrey E. Williams sold 59,730 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $226.86, for a total transaction of $13,550,347.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 489,944 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $111,148,695.84. This trade represents a 10.87 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Timothy D. Cook sold 223,986 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $224.46, for a total value of $50,275,897.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 3,280,180 shares in the company, valued at approximately $736,269,202.80. This trade represents a 6.39 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 404,040 shares of company stock worth $91,062,512. 0.06% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.