Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Sell”

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report report published on Monday.

Separately, Alliance Global Partners lowered Gladstone Land from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $16.00 to $14.50 in a report on Friday, November 8th.

Gladstone Land Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ LAND opened at $11.15 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77. Gladstone Land has a twelve month low of $10.27 and a twelve month high of $15.36. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $10.87 and a two-hundred day moving average of $12.36. The stock has a market cap of $403.46 million, a P/E ratio of -38.45, a P/E/G ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 1.05.

Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.10) by $0.19. The company had revenue of $21.10 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $20.45 million. Gladstone Land had a return on equity of 1.89% and a net margin of 15.59%. On average, research analysts forecast that Gladstone Land will post 0.52 earnings per share for the current year.

Gladstone Land Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, January 27th were given a dividend of $0.0467 per share. This represents a yield of 5.33%. This is an increase from Gladstone Land’s previous dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 24th. Gladstone Land’s payout ratio is presently -193.10%.

Institutional Trading of Gladstone Land

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its position in Gladstone Land by 45.3% during the third quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 11,409 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $159,000 after purchasing an additional 3,556 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in Gladstone Land by 62.2% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 139,298 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,936,000 after purchasing an additional 53,400 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its position in Gladstone Land by 90.2% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 85,297 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,186,000 after purchasing an additional 40,459 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in Gladstone Land by 2.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 795,775 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $11,061,000 after purchasing an additional 16,079 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Gladstone Land by 1.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 900,632 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $12,521,000 after acquiring an additional 13,217 shares in the last quarter. 53.60% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Gladstone Land

Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The Company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 169 farms, comprised of approximately 116,000 acres in 15 different states and over 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at a total of approximately $1.6 billion.