Court Place Advisors LLC Sells 944 Shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Court Place Advisors LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 24,370 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock after selling 944 shares during the period. Apple makes up about 1.7% of Court Place Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 13th largest holding. Court Place Advisors LLC’s holdings in Apple were worth $5,678,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Boston Common Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of Apple by 9.5% during the 2nd quarter. Boston Common Asset Management LLC now owns 203,435 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $42,847,000 after buying an additional 17,617 shares in the last quarter. Bank & Trust Co bought a new position in Apple in the second quarter valued at $2,701,000. Benchmark Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in Apple during the second quarter valued at about $208,000. Westend Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Apple by 5,126.6% during the second quarter. Westend Capital Management LLC now owns 67,684 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $14,671,000 after purchasing an additional 66,389 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BancFirst Trust & Investment Management lifted its stake in Apple by 22.4% during the second quarter. BancFirst Trust & Investment Management now owns 2,048 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $439,000 after purchasing an additional 375 shares during the last quarter. 67.73% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Apple Stock Performance

Apple stock opened at $258.20 on Wednesday. Apple Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $164.07 and a fifty-two week high of $258.21. The stock has a market cap of $3.90 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.47, a PEG ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 1.23. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $235.45 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $226.34. 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 released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The iPhone maker reported $1.64 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.04. The company 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 firm’s revenue was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.46 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Apple Inc. will post 7.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Apple Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 11th were given a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.39%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. Apple’s dividend payout ratio is presently 16.45%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AAPL has been the topic of a number of research reports. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $273.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a report on Friday, December 13th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $260.00 price target on shares of Apple in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Apple to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Maxim Group increased their target price on shares of Apple from $203.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Tigress Financial lifted their target price on shares of Apple from $245.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 28th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $236.78.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Apple news, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 61,019 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.20, for a total value of $13,802,497.80. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 187,043 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $42,309,126.60. The trade was a 24.60 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Chris Kondo sold 4,130 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $228.87, for a total value of $945,233.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 15,419 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,528,946.53. This represents a 21.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 508,170 shares of company stock worth $117,004,745 in the last three months. 0.06% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.