Renaissance Technologies LLC Buys New Shares in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR)

Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 59,883 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $9,105,000.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 543.6% in the second 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 last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 2.0% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 48,503,593 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $6,986,458,000 after acquiring an additional 951,567 shares during the last quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in Digital Realty Trust in the fourth quarter valued at $107,372,000. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. lifted its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 16.8% in the second quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 4,725,971 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $718,584,000 after acquiring an additional 678,165 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Kodai Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in Digital Realty Trust in the fourth quarter valued at $59,087,000. Institutional investors own 99.71% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on DLR shares. Argus cut shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $143.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 30th. Stifel Nicolaus raised their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 12th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $144.00 to $170.00 in a research note on Wednesday, June 26th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $123.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, ten have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $154.00.

Digital Realty Trust Price Performance

Shares of Digital Realty Trust stock opened at $162.13 on Wednesday. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a twelve month low of $113.94 and a twelve month high of $163.31. The company has a quick ratio of 1.78, a current ratio of 1.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $152.17 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $147.46. The stock has a market capitalization of $50.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.06 and a beta of 0.60.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last released 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). Digital Realty Trust had a net margin of 20.58% and a return on equity of 5.93%. The firm had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.38 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.68 earnings per share. Digital Realty Trust’s quarterly revenue was down .7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Digital Realty Trust, Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be issued a $1.22 dividend. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.01%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 13th. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio is currently 135.56%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Digital Realty Trust

In other Digital Realty Trust news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total value of $90,156.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,360,604.30. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.17% of the company’s stock.

Digital Realty Trust Company 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.