Early on Tuesday, analysts at Piper Jaffary said they are still bullish on Apple Inc. (AAPL) after positive Mac sales data from NPD Group was released.

The analysts maintain an “Overweight” rating on AAPL with a price target of $767. This valuation suggests a 73% upside to Monday’s closing price of $442.80.

A Piper Jaffray analyst commented, “The first month of NPD Mac sales data is up 31% y/y, which we believe is driven by Apple catching up with iMac orders. We note that the company stated there was a 700k y/y iMac unit decline in the December quarter, which we believe was caused by supply issues around the redesigned iMacs. We remain comfortable with our down 5% y/y Mac expectation for March. While Macs are becoming a less and less meaningful piece of the story, we believe the core themes moving forward for AAPL are sequential margin improvement in June, a cheaper iPhone in September, and a TV in the December quarter.”

Apple shares were up slightly during pre-market trading on Tuesday. The stock is down -15.24% over the past twelve months.

The Bottom Line
Shares of Apple (AAPL) have a dividend yield of 2.39% based on last night’s closing price of $442.80 and the company’s annualized dividend payout of $10.60 per share.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is not recommended at this time, holding a Dividend.com DARS™ Rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.