Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the fourteen research firms that are covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, ten have assigned a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $117.00.

A number of research firms recently issued reports on CCI. TD Cowen lowered their price target on Crown Castle from $127.00 to $123.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Crown Castle from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $116.00 to $117.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $123.00 to $127.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $103.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Crown Castle

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 24.7% in the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 157,895 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $17,476,000 after buying an additional 31,319 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Crown Castle by 4.2% in the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 5,088,017 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $603,592,000 after acquiring an additional 203,442 shares during the last quarter. Citizens Business Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Crown Castle in the third quarter worth approximately $620,000. Quest Partners LLC increased its position in Crown Castle by 3,111.6% during the third quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 13,328 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,581,000 after purchasing an additional 12,913 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Crown Castle by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 20,875,581 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $2,476,470,000 after buying an additional 747,390 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

Shares of CCI opened at $91.00 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $39.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.27 and a beta of 0.86. Crown Castle has a 52-week low of $89.49 and a 52-week high of $120.92. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $104.33 and a 200 day moving average price of $106.81.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.70 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.73 by ($1.03). The firm had revenue of $1.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. Crown Castle had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 18.59%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.77 EPS. Research analysts predict that Crown Castle will post 6.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be issued a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.88%. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 221.99%.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.