Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) has been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the twenty ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price target among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $154.00.

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on DLR shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the company from $150.00 to $175.00 in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $123.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Argus cut Digital Realty Trust from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Digital Realty Trust from $144.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, June 3rd. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised Digital Realty Trust from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $144.00 to $170.00 in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th.

Insider Activity at Digital Realty Trust

In other Digital Realty Trust news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total transaction of $90,156.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 9,055 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,360,604.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.17% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Digital Realty Trust

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its position in Digital Realty Trust by 543.6% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,447,340 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $220,068,000 after acquiring an additional 1,773,591 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 2.0% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 48,503,593 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $6,986,458,000 after purchasing an additional 951,567 shares during the last quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in Digital Realty Trust in the fourth quarter worth $107,372,000. Wulff Hansen & CO. increased its position in Digital Realty Trust by 15,105.0% during the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 795,830 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $121,006,000 after buying an additional 790,596 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Electron Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 220.7% during the second quarter. Electron Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,041,594 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $158,374,000 after buying an additional 716,816 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.71% of the company’s stock.

Digital Realty Trust Price Performance

NYSE DLR opened at $161.79 on Tuesday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $152.69 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $147.95. The stock has a market cap of $50.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.14 and a beta of 0.60. The company has a current ratio of 1.78, a quick ratio of 1.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. Digital Realty Trust has a 52 week low of $113.94 and a 52 week high of $165.17.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($1.43). Digital Realty Trust had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 5.93%. The business had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.38 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.68 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down .7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Digital Realty Trust will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 13th were given a $1.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.02%. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 135.56%.

Digital Realty Trust Company Profile

Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges.