Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) Given Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” by Analysts

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty research firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $154.00.

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on DLR. Mizuho started coverage on shares of Digital Realty Trust in a research report on Thursday, July 11th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $170.00 target price for the company. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $144.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, June 3rd. BMO Capital Markets upgraded Digital Realty Trust from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $144.00 to $170.00 in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Digital Realty Trust from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $150.00 to $175.00 in a report on Friday, June 28th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Digital Realty Trust from $155.00 to $170.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Up 1.4 %

DLR opened at $160.87 on Tuesday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $152.18 and its 200 day simple moving average is $147.37. Digital Realty Trust has a 1-year low of $113.94 and a 1-year high of $162.58. The stock has a market cap of $50.26 billion, a PE ratio of 44.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.06 and a beta of 0.60. The company has a current ratio of 1.78, a quick ratio of 1.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.63 by ($1.43). The company had revenue of $1.36 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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 quarterly revenue was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.68 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Digital Realty Trust will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be paid a dividend of $1.22 per share. This represents a $4.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.03%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 13th. Digital Realty Trust’s payout ratio is 135.56%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,360,604.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.17% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Digital Realty Trust

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 543.6% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,447,340 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $220,068,000 after acquiring an additional 1,773,591 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 2.0% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 48,503,593 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $6,986,458,000 after purchasing an additional 951,567 shares in the last quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust in the 4th quarter valued at about $107,372,000. Wulff Hansen & CO. increased its position in Digital Realty Trust by 15,105.0% in the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 795,830 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $121,006,000 after buying an additional 790,596 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Electron Capital Partners LLC raised its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 220.7% during the 2nd quarter. Electron Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,041,594 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $158,374,000 after buying an additional 716,816 shares during the period. 99.71% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.