Balentine LLC Has $25.29 Million Holdings in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Balentine LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 88.0% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 108,534 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 50,801 shares during the period. Apple accounts for approximately 1.0% of Balentine LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 11th largest holding. Balentine LLC’s holdings in Apple were worth $25,288,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bull Oak Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of Apple by 252.3% during the third quarter. Bull Oak Capital LLC now owns 155 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 111 shares during the period. Hershey Financial Advisers LLC acquired a new position in Apple during the 2nd quarter valued at about $42,000. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 88.9% in the 3rd quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc now owns 306 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $69,000 after purchasing an additional 144 shares during the last quarter. Cordant Inc. grew its position in shares of Apple by 34.3% during the 3rd quarter. Cordant Inc. now owns 678 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $158,000 after buying an additional 173 shares during the period. Finally, EMC Capital Management raised its stake in shares of Apple by 7.3% during the third quarter. EMC Capital Management now owns 892 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $201,000 after buying an additional 61 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 67.73% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $260.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. KeyCorp lowered Apple from a “sector weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $200.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Bank of America reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $256.00 price target on shares of Apple in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and set a $225.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group downgraded shares of Apple from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and upped their target price for the company from $205.00 to $212.92 in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $237.64.

Apple Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of AAPL stock opened at $242.70 on Friday. Apple Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $164.07 and a fifty-two week high of $260.10. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $239.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $229.75. 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 company has a market cap of $3.67 trillion, a PE ratio of 39.92, a P/E/G ratio of 2.41 and a beta of 1.20.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 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%. Apple’s revenue was up 6.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.46 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Apple Inc. will post 7.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Apple Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 11th were given a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.41%. Apple’s dividend payout ratio is currently 16.45%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, 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 transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, COO Jeffrey E. Williams sold 100,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.97, for a total value of $24,997,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 389,944 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $97,474,301.68. The trade was a 20.41 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.06% of the company’s stock.

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.