Wedbush Reiterates “Outperform” Rating for EastGroup Properties (NYSE:EGP)

EastGroup Properties (NYSE:EGP)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reissued by stock analysts at Wedbush in a research note issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $209.00 price objective on the real estate investment trust’s stock. Wedbush’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 17.68% from the company’s current price.

A number of other research firms have also weighed in on EGP. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of EastGroup Properties from $204.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Barclays lowered their price target on shares of EastGroup Properties from $198.00 to $193.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. KeyCorp upped their price objective on shares of EastGroup Properties from $178.00 to $198.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of EastGroup Properties from $172.00 to $186.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Finally, Mizuho upgraded shares of EastGroup Properties from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $175.00 to $200.00 in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, EastGroup Properties currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $191.73.

EastGroup Properties Stock Down 0.5 %

EGP stock traded down $0.93 during trading on Friday, hitting $177.60. 81,551 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 295,556. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.60, a PEG ratio of 2.65 and a beta of 0.99. EastGroup Properties has a 1 year low of $155.23 and a 1 year high of $192.61. The company has a quick ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 0.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $184.18 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $175.43.

EastGroup Properties (NYSE:EGP) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The real estate investment trust reported $1.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.10 by ($0.97). EastGroup Properties had a return on equity of 8.69% and a net margin of 37.16%. The business had revenue of $162.88 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $161.52 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.95 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.2% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that EastGroup Properties will post 8.32 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of EastGroup Properties

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in EastGroup Properties by 3.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,863,129 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,233,785,000 after purchasing an additional 210,207 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in EastGroup Properties by 7.9% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 975,450 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $175,359,000 after purchasing an additional 71,614 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners increased its stake in EastGroup Properties by 26.1% during the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 953,736 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $171,399,000 after purchasing an additional 197,427 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in EastGroup Properties by 7.9% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 728,092 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $123,848,000 after purchasing an additional 53,083 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in EastGroup Properties by 0.5% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 479,323 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $81,533,000 after purchasing an additional 2,418 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.14% of the company’s stock.

About EastGroup Properties

EastGroup Properties, Inc (NYSE: EGP), a member of the S&P Mid-Cap 400 and Russell 1000 Indexes, is a self-administered equity real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and operation of industrial properties in major Sunbelt markets throughout the United States with an emphasis in the states of Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and North Carolina.