Redwood Trust, Inc. (NYSE:RWT) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Redwood Trust, Inc. (NYSE:RWT) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the eight research firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $7.84.

RWT has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $8.00 price target on shares of Redwood Trust in a research report on Friday, February 14th. StockNews.com downgraded Redwood Trust from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, February 17th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on Redwood Trust from $7.00 to $6.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st.

Institutional Trading of Redwood Trust

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in Redwood Trust by 150.9% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,995,520 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $13,031,000 after acquiring an additional 1,200,050 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Redwood Trust by 6.9% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 14,611,264 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $112,945,000 after acquiring an additional 941,223 shares during the period. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. grew its position in Redwood Trust by 19.2% in the fourth quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,994,294 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $13,023,000 after acquiring an additional 321,612 shares during the period. NFC Investments LLC grew its position in Redwood Trust by 127.7% in the third quarter. NFC Investments LLC now owns 484,975 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $3,749,000 after acquiring an additional 271,975 shares during the period. Finally, Angel Oak Capital Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Redwood Trust in the fourth quarter valued at $1,726,000. 74.34% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Redwood Trust Stock Up 3.4 %

RWT opened at $6.61 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 14.09, a quick ratio of 44.36 and a current ratio of 44.36. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $6.49 and a 200 day moving average price of $7.06. The firm has a market cap of $875.29 million, a P/E ratio of 20.02 and a beta of 1.57. Redwood Trust has a twelve month low of $5.45 and a twelve month high of $8.15.

Redwood Trust (NYSE:RWT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.16 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $27.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $26.00 million. Redwood Trust had a return on equity of 6.91% and a net margin of 9.35%. Research analysts forecast that Redwood Trust will post 0.78 EPS for the current year.

Redwood Trust Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a dividend of $0.18 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This is a boost from Redwood Trust’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.17. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 10.90%. Redwood Trust’s payout ratio is currently 218.18%.

About Redwood Trust

Redwood Trust, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty finance company in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Residential Consumer Mortgage Banking, Residential Investor Mortgage Banking, and Investment Portfolio. The Residential Consumer Mortgage Banking segment operates a mortgage loan conduit that acquires residential loans from third-party originators for subsequent sale, securitization, or transfer to its investment portfolio.