Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) Rating Lowered to Hold at Argus

Argus lowered shares of Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Thursday, MarketBeat reports.

A number of other analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Mizuho began coverage on Digital Realty Trust in a research report on Thursday, July 11th. They set an outperform rating and a $170.00 target price for the company. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $144.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, June 3rd. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, July 12th. HSBC upped their price target on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $115.00 to $118.00 and gave the stock a reduce rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $155.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $153.44.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Performance

NYSE:DLR opened at $150.84 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $47.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.90, a PEG ratio of 10.97 and a beta of 0.59. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $150.15 and a 200 day simple moving average of $144.91. The company has a current ratio of 1.78, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. Digital Realty Trust has a 1-year low of $113.94 and a 1-year high of $162.58.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($1.43). The firm had revenue of $1.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.38 billion. Digital Realty Trust had a return on equity of 5.93% and a net margin of 20.58%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.68 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Digital Realty Trust will post 6.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 14th were issued a dividend of $1.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 14th. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.24%. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 135.56%.

Insider Transactions at Digital Realty Trust

In other news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total transaction of $90,156.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,055 shares in the company, valued at $1,360,604.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 0.17% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Digital Realty Trust

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of DLR. Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 773.1% in the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 585 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $79,000 after purchasing an additional 518 shares during the last quarter. PFG Advisors bought a new stake in Digital Realty Trust during the fourth quarter valued at $214,000. First Citizens Bank & Trust Co. bought a new stake in Digital Realty Trust during the fourth quarter valued at $314,000. DAVENPORT & Co LLC boosted its position in Digital Realty Trust by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC now owns 5,681 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $764,000 after acquiring an additional 143 shares during the last quarter. Finally, WealthShield Partners LLC bought a new stake in Digital Realty Trust during the fourth quarter valued at $966,000. Institutional investors own 99.71% of the company’s stock.

About Digital Realty Trust

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.