Marshall Wace LLP Acquires Shares of 84,690 Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR)

Marshall Wace LLP bought a new position in shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 84,690 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $12,877,000.

Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 543.6% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 1,447,340 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $220,068,000 after buying an additional 1,773,591 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 951,567 shares during the period. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in Digital Realty Trust during the fourth quarter worth about $107,372,000. Wulff Hansen & CO. raised its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 15,105.0% during the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 795,830 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $121,006,000 after purchasing an additional 790,596 shares during the period. Finally, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 16.8% in the 2nd 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 purchasing an additional 678,165 shares during the last quarter. 99.71% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on DLR shares. Mizuho initiated coverage on shares of Digital Realty Trust in a report on Thursday, July 11th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $170.00 price target for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Digital Realty Trust from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $150.00 to $175.00 in a research report on Friday, June 28th. Truist Financial increased their price target on Digital Realty Trust from $160.00 to $168.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $165.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 12th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $144.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, June 3rd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Digital Realty Trust currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $154.00.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Down 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE DLR opened at $161.16 on Friday. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a 12-month low of $113.94 and a 12-month high of $165.17. The stock has a market cap of $50.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.77, a PEG ratio of 5.14 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. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $152.56 and its 200-day simple moving average is $147.78.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates 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 company had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.38 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.68 EPS. Digital Realty Trust’s revenue for the quarter was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Digital Realty Trust, Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Digital Realty Trust

In other news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of Digital Realty Trust stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total transaction of $90,156.00. Following the completion of the sale, 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 filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 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.