Eclectic Associates Inc. ADV Boosts Stock Holdings in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Eclectic Associates Inc. ADV lifted its stake in shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 30,629 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 460 shares during the quarter. Apple accounts for 2.8% of Eclectic Associates Inc. ADV’s portfolio, making the stock its 6th largest holding. Eclectic Associates Inc. ADV’s holdings in Apple were worth $7,137,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup boosted their price target on Apple to $185.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. TD Cowen raised their target price on Apple from $220.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, July 29th. Oppenheimer reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $250.00 price target on shares of Apple in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Bank of America reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $256.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research note on Thursday, October 3rd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating, twenty-two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $235.25.

Apple Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of NASDAQ AAPL opened at $229.00 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $227.47 and a 200 day moving average price of $217.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.51, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.87. The stock has a market cap of $3.46 trillion, a P/E ratio of 37.66, a P/E/G ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.24. Apple Inc. has a 52-week low of $164.07 and a 52-week high of $237.49.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The iPhone maker reported $1.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $94.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $94.52 billion. Apple had a net margin of 23.97% and a return on equity of 152.94%. The firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.46 EPS. Analysts expect that Apple Inc. will post 7.43 EPS for the current year.

Apple Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 11th were issued 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 of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. Apple’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 16.45%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Luca Maestri sold 59,305 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, October 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $226.52, for a total value of $13,433,768.60. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 107,788 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,416,137.76. The trade was a 35.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Chris Kondo sold 4,130 shares of Apple stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $228.87, for a total transaction of $945,233.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 15,419 shares in the company, valued at $3,528,946.53. The trade was a 21.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 408,170 shares of company stock valued at $92,007,745. 0.06% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Apple 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.