Van ECK Associates Corp Acquires 16,061 Shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR)

Van ECK Associates Corp increased its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) by 14.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 124,622 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 16,061 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in Digital Realty Trust were worth $16,772,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 2.1% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 47,390,848 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $5,735,240,000 after purchasing an additional 971,032 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its holdings in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 4.8% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,647,509 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,046,522,000 after buying an additional 394,682 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its position in Digital Realty Trust by 6.8% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,426,189 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $535,658,000 after purchasing an additional 282,825 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,887,691 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $470,488,000 after buying an additional 160,730 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 6.1% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,151,172 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $381,355,000 after acquiring an additional 180,869 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.71% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 3,400 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $145.50, for a total transaction of $494,700.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 8,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,224,091.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.39% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

DLR has been the topic of several analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Digital Realty Trust from $125.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. StockNews.com cut shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Digital Realty Trust from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Evercore ISI reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $154.00 price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised Digital Realty Trust from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $135.00 to $155.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Digital Realty Trust currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $143.33.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Performance

Shares of DLR opened at $137.99 on Thursday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $142.05 and a 200 day moving average of $137.13. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.46, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 0.54. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a one year low of $86.33 and a one year high of $154.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.14 and a quick ratio of 1.14.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were given a dividend of $1.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.54%. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 164.31%.

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.