Piper Jaffray Companies reaffirmed their in-line rating on shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in a research note published on Wednesday morning. They currently have a $155.00 price objective on the iPhone maker’s stock.

Several other research firms have also issued reports on AAPL. Drexel Hamilton reissued a positive rating and issued a $185.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research report on Monday. Cowen and Company reissued an outperform rating and issued a $135.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research report on Monday. RBC Capital Markets reissued an in-line rating and issued a $125.00 price objective on shares of Apple in a research report on Monday. Vetr lowered shares of Apple from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating and set a $134.63 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, January 25th. Finally, Maxim Group dropped their price objective on shares of Apple from $173.00 to $164.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating, thirty-nine have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Apple currently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $133.45.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 31st. The iPhone maker reported $3.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.22 by $0.14. Apple had a net margin of 20.73% and a return on equity of 35.21%. The company earned $78.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $77.37 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $3.28 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Apple will post $8.93 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 13th will be given a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 9th. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.77%. Apple’s dividend payout ratio is currently 27.31%.

Apple Inc (Apple) designs, manufactures and markets mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players, and a variety of related software, services, peripherals, networking solutions, and third-party digital content and applications. The Company’s products and services include iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, Apple TV, a portfolio of consumer and professional software applications, the iOS and OS X operating systems, iCloud, and a variety of accessory, service and support offerings.

Source: dailyquint