Leavell Investment Management Inc. Raises Stake in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR)

Leavell Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) by 101.3% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 10,502 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,285 shares during the quarter. Leavell Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Digital Realty Trust were worth $1,700,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in DLR. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 102.1% during the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 19,528 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $2,813,000 after acquiring an additional 9,865 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its position in Digital Realty Trust by 295.5% during the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 31,665 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $4,561,000 after purchasing an additional 23,659 shares in the last quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in Digital Realty Trust by 652.4% during the second quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 29,292 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $4,454,000 after purchasing an additional 25,399 shares in the last quarter. Choreo LLC increased its position in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 86.8% in the second quarter. Choreo LLC now owns 8,782 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,336,000 after buying an additional 4,081 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. raised its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 11.2% during the 2nd quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 1,465,876 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $222,886,000 after buying an additional 147,689 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.71% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “moderate sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 4th. HSBC raised shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “reduce” rating to a “hold” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $124.00 to $160.00 in a research note on Friday, October 4th. Argus cut Digital Realty Trust from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Raymond James raised their price target on Digital Realty Trust from $170.00 to $190.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $167.68.

Digital Realty Trust Price Performance

DLR opened at $181.98 on Friday. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a 52-week low of $126.22 and a 52-week high of $193.88. The company has a 50 day moving average of $163.54 and a two-hundred day moving average of $153.43. The company has a market cap of $60.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 152.92, a P/E/G ratio of 5.58 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a quick ratio of 1.78, a current ratio of 1.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.67 by ($1.58). Digital Realty Trust had a return on equity of 2.24% and a net margin of 8.04%. The business had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.43 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.62 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Digital Realty Trust, Inc. will post 6.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 17th. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th will be issued a dividend of $1.22 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 13th. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.68%. Digital Realty Trust’s payout ratio is currently 410.08%.

Digital Realty Trust Profile

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.