Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC Boosts Stock Position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 71,991 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 662 shares during the period. Apple accounts for approximately 9.1% of Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its biggest position. Paces Ferry Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Apple were worth $15,163,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Verus Financial Partners Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of 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 boosted its holdings in shares of Apple by 3.8% during the second quarter. Brown Financial Advisory now owns 1,364 shares of the iPhone maker’s stock worth $287,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the period. Core Wealth Management Inc. boosted its holdings 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 worth $625,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the period. Lowery Thomas LLC boosted its holdings 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 worth $1,602,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the period. Finally, Klein Pavlis & Peasley Financial Inc. boosted 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 currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Apple

In related news, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 61,019 shares of Apple stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $226.20, for a total value of $13,802,497.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 187,043 shares in the company, valued at approximately $42,309,126.60. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, insider Chris Kondo sold 8,706 shares of Apple stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $225.00, for a total transaction of $1,958,850.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 15,419 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,469,275. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Katherine L. Adams sold 61,019 shares of Apple stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.20, for a total transaction 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 $42,309,126.60. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 417,924 shares of company stock worth $94,142,399. Corporate insiders own 0.06% of the company’s stock.

Apple Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ AAPL opened at $222.72 on Thursday. Apple Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $164.07 and a fifty-two week high of $237.49. The stock has a market cap of $3.39 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.63, a PEG ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 1.24. 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 firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $226.91 and its 200 day simple moving average is $213.51.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 31st. The iPhone maker reported $1.64 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.60 by $0.04. The firm 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 company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.46 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Apple Inc. will post 7.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Apple Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, November 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.45%. Apple’s payout ratio is currently 16.45%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $260.00 price target on shares of Apple in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Barclays cut their price target on Apple from $186.00 to $184.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Evercore ISI restated a “buy” rating and set a $250.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. KeyCorp cut Apple from a “sector weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $200.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Friday, October 25th. Finally, New Street Research restated a “neutral” rating and set a $225.00 target price on shares of Apple in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating, twenty-two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $235.51.

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.