Barclays Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Stock

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) had its price target boosted by equities research analysts at Barclays from $173.00 to $180.00 in a research note issued on Friday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The firm presently has an “underweight” rating on the iPhone maker’s stock. Barclays‘s price objective would indicate a potential downside of 11.06% from the company’s previous close.

AAPL has been the topic of a number of other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Apple from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Raymond James Financial dropped their price target on shares of Apple from $250.00 to $230.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. UBS Group restated a “hold” rating on shares of Apple in a research note on Friday, July 18th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Apple from an “underperform” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, July 18th. Finally, KeyCorp upgraded shares of Apple from an “underweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $237.25.

Apple Stock Performance

Shares of AAPL stock opened at $202.38 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.02 trillion, a P/E ratio of 30.71, a PEG ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $205.37 and its 200 day moving average is $213.60. Apple has a 12 month low of $169.21 and a 12 month high of $260.10.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 31st. The iPhone maker reported $1.57 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.43 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $94.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $88.64 billion. Apple had a net margin of 24.30% and a return on equity of 172.48%. Apple’s revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.40 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Apple will post 7.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Apple announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Thursday, May 1st that permits the company to repurchase $100.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the iPhone maker to buy up to 3.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Apple news, insider Chris Kondo sold 4,486 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $208.19, for a total value of $933,940.34. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 15,533 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,233,815.27. This represents a 22.41% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.06% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Apple

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,400,790,809 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $311,157,662,000 after purchasing an additional 5,005,297 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 340,164,913 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $84,999,145,000 after purchasing an additional 6,307,413 shares in the last quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 573,627.2% during the 2nd quarter. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC now owns 205,692,660 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $39,065,374,000 after purchasing an additional 205,656,808 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Apple during the 4th quarter valued at about $46,868,648,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its stake in shares of Apple by 13.3% during the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 171,385,531 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock valued at $42,918,365,000 after purchasing an additional 20,079,472 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 67.73% of the company’s stock.

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.