Head to Head Contrast: Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) & Sunrise Realty Trust (NASDAQ:SUNS)

Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) and Sunrise Realty Trust (NASDAQ:SUNS) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, earnings, risk, dividends, profitability, institutional ownership and valuation.

Dividends

Ashford Hospitality Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.7%. Sunrise Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 12.2%. Ashford Hospitality Trust pays out -0.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Ashford Hospitality Trust and Sunrise Realty Trust”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ashford Hospitality Trust	$1.17 billion	0.03	-$178.49 million	($27.72)	-0.23
Sunrise Realty Trust	$10.63 million	12.40	$230,000.00	N/A	N/A

Sunrise Realty Trust has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

41.0% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.2% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 5.7% of Sunrise Realty Trust shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Ashford Hospitality Trust and Sunrise Realty Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ashford Hospitality Trust	2.84%	-12.89%	1.01%
Sunrise Realty Trust	N/A	N/A	N/A

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and recommmendations for Ashford Hospitality Trust and Sunrise Realty Trust, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ashford Hospitality Trust	0	0	0	0	0.00
Sunrise Realty Trust	0	0	2	1	3.33

Sunrise Realty Trust has a consensus price target of $13.92, suggesting a potential upside of 41.72%. Given Sunrise Realty Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Sunrise Realty Trust is more favorable than Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Summary

Sunrise Realty Trust beats Ashford Hospitality Trust on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ashford Hospitality Trust

Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc., together with its subsidiaries (Ashford Trust), is a real estate investment trust (REIT). While our portfolio currently consists of upscale hotels and upper upscale full-service hotels, our investment strategy is predominantly focused on investing in upper upscale full-service hotels in the United States that have revenue per available room (RevPAR) generally less than twice the U.S. national average, and in all methods including direct real estate, equity, and debt. We currently anticipate future investments will predominantly be in upper upscale hotels. We own our lodging investments and conduct our business through Ashford Hospitality Limited Partnership (Ashford Trust OP), our operating partnership. Ashford OP General Partner LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashford Trust, serves as the sole general partner of our operating partnership.

About Sunrise Realty Trust

Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. engages in commercial real estate (CRE) lending business. It focuses on originating CRE debt investments and providing capital to borrowers and sponsors with transitional business plans collateralized by CRE assets. The company intends to create a diversified investment portfolio, targeting investments in senior mortgage loans, mezzanine loans, whole loans, B-notes, CMBS, and debt-like preferred equity securities across CRE asset classes. Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2023 and is based in West Palm Beach, Florida.