W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE:WPC) have received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the nine analysts that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, six have given a hold recommendation and two have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $62.43.

WPC has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on W. P. Carey from $60.00 to $59.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. JMP Securities reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of W. P. Carey in a research report on Friday, January 10th. UBS Group cut their price target on shares of W. P. Carey from $62.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price objective (up from $62.00) on shares of W. P. Carey in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. Finally, Barclays restated an “underweight” rating and set a $59.00 price target (up previously from $56.00) on shares of W. P. Carey in a report on Tuesday, December 17th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV grew its stake in shares of W. P. Carey by 35.9% in the third quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 651 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $41,000 after acquiring an additional 172 shares during the period. Kowal Investment Group LLC grew its position in W. P. Carey by 3.4% in the 2nd quarter. Kowal Investment Group LLC now owns 6,070 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $334,000 after purchasing an additional 199 shares during the period. Harbour Investments Inc. raised its stake in W. P. Carey by 5.9% during the 3rd quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 3,626 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $226,000 after buying an additional 203 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning lifted its holdings in shares of W. P. Carey by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 64,709 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $4,031,000 after buying an additional 207 shares during the period. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of W. P. Carey by 9.5% in the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,444 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $152,000 after buying an additional 212 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.73% of the company’s stock.

W. P. Carey Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of WPC opened at $55.81 on Friday. W. P. Carey has a fifty-two week low of $52.91 and a fifty-two week high of $66.42. The firm has a market cap of $12.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.97, a PEG ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 0.97. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $55.51 and a 200-day moving average price of $57.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 1.00 and a current ratio of 1.00.

W. P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.51 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.13 by ($0.62). The business had revenue of $394.78 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $377.43 million. W. P. Carey had a return on equity of 6.45% and a net margin of 35.12%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.32 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that W. P. Carey will post 4.5 earnings per share for the current year.

W. P. Carey Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were issued a $0.88 dividend. This represents a $3.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.31%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 31st. This is a boost from W. P. Carey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. W. P. Carey’s dividend payout ratio is 138.58%.

About W. P. Carey

W. P. Carey ranks among the largest net lease REITs with a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality, operationally critical commercial real estate, which includes 1,424 net lease properties covering approximately 173 million square feet and a portfolio of 89 self-storage operating properties as of December 31, 2023.