Comparing Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) & Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust (NASDAQ:WHLR)

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) and Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust (NASDAQ:WHLR) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Digital Realty Trust and Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Digital Realty Trust	2	7	10	1	2.50
Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust	0	0	0	0	N/A

Digital Realty Trust presently has a consensus price target of $154.00, suggesting a potential downside of 4.81%. Given Digital Realty Trust’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Digital Realty Trust is more favorable than Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust.

Risk and Volatility

Digital Realty Trust has a beta of 0.6, suggesting that its share price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust has a beta of 1.53, suggesting that its share price is 53% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Digital Realty Trust and Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Digital Realty Trust	20.58%	5.93%	2.61%
Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust	-10.98%	N/A	-1.70%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Digital Realty Trust and Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Digital Realty Trust	$5.46 billion	9.16	$948.84 million	$3.60	44.45
Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust	$103.61 million	0.04	-$4.69 million	($4,458.03)	0.00

Digital Realty Trust has higher revenue and earnings than Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust. Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Digital Realty Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Digital Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $4.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.0%. Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust pays an annual dividend of $1.68 per share and has a dividend yield of 21.8%. Digital Realty Trust pays out 135.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust pays out 0.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.7% of Digital Realty Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 35.3% of Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Digital Realty Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 40.6% of Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Digital Realty Trust beats Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust on 12 of the 16 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Digital Realty Trust

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. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents.

About Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust

Headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust, Inc. is a fully integrated, self-managed commercial real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on owning and operating income-producing retail properties with a primary focus on grocery-anchored centers.