Stock Update (NASDAQ:AAPL): India’s trade minister: discussing Apple’s request for FDI rules waiver

[Reuters] – India’s commerce and industry minister on Monday said she was in talks with the finance ministry on Apple Inc’s foreign direct investment proposal that seeks a waiver from the country’s local sourcing rules. Nirmala Sitharaman’s comments came days after the finance ministry asked the iPhone maker to meet rules that mandate foreign retailers to sell at least 30 percent locally-sourced goods if it wished to open stores in the country. The minister, however, said she was not in favour of relaxing rules for Apple to sell refurbished second-hand phones in India. Read more on this. Apple Inc. (AAPL) , currently valued at $549.66B, started the session at $99.44. Today, shares have traded between $99.25 and $100.47 per share with a one year range of $89.47 to $132.97. AAPL shares are currently priced at 12.12x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry’s 12.37x forward p/e ratio. And for those looking to make a return holding the stock, the company pays shareholders $2.28 per share annually in dividends, yielding 2.27%. In a review of the consensus earnings estimate this quarter, 36 sell-side analysts are looking at $1.39 per share, which would be $0.46 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.38 sequential decrease. What we find to be interesting is that the full-year EPS estimate of $8.28 is a $0.94 worse when compared to the previous year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $42.14 Billion. If realized, that would be a 15.04% decrease over the year-ago quarter. More recently, Needham Initiated AAPL at Strong Buy (Apr 6, 2016). Previously, Cowen upgraded AAPL from Market Perform to Outperform. The average price target for AAPL shares by the analysts covering the stock is $125.42, which is 26.13% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NASDAQ:AAPL) Similar Articles: Stock Update (NASDAQ:AAPL): Apple refused China request for source code in last two years -lawyer Stock Update: Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) – Will Qualcomm Lose Out on Apple’s iPhone? (QCOM, AAPL) Stock Update: Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) – Now Samsung is following Apple by allowing mobile ad blockers for the first time