Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Receives $95.13 Average Price Target from Analysts

Shares of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-one ratings firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, seven have given a buy recommendation and two have given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $95.1263.

Several research analysts have commented on CCI shares. Citizens Jmp cut their target price on Crown Castle from $125.00 to $120.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 24th. Raymond James Financial raised their price objective on Crown Castle from $102.00 to $108.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 23rd. KeyCorp lifted their price objective on Crown Castle from $98.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 23rd. TD Cowen reduced their target price on Crown Castle from $94.00 to $92.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded Crown Castle from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, May 16th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Crown Castle

In other news, VP Robert Sean Collins sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, August 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.89, for a total transaction of $113,835.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president directly owned 5,113 shares in the company, valued at $388,025.57. This represents a 22.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.09% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Crown Castle

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Crown Castle by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 69,769,393 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $6,200,406,000 after acquiring an additional 386,733 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Crown Castle during the 2nd quarter valued at about $3,326,154,000. Cohen & Steers Inc. grew its stake in Crown Castle by 11.0% during the fourth quarter. Cohen & Steers Inc. now owns 39,790,292 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $3,536,214,000 after purchasing an additional 3,953,685 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in Crown Castle by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 22,239,559 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,976,430,000 after purchasing an additional 511,018 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in Crown Castle by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 13,986,852 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,243,012,000 after purchasing an additional 380,419 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Crown Castle Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CCI opened at $74.04 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $78.90 and a 200 day simple moving average of $84.34. Crown Castle has a 1 year low of $69.72 and a 1 year high of $104.61. The firm has a market cap of $31.50 billion, a PE ratio of 37.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.40 and a beta of 0.95.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The real estate investment trust reported $0.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.39 by ($0.17). The business had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $995.05 million. Crown Castle had a net margin of 20.71% and a negative return on equity of 51.60%. The company’s revenue was down 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.67 earnings per share. Crown Castle has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.530-4.650 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Crown Castle will post 4.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 15th will be paid a $1.0625 dividend. This represents a $4.25 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 15th. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio is currently 215.74%.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle is a U.S.-focused communications infrastructure company organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, operates and leases shared wireless infrastructure. Its primary business consists of providing tower-based site leases, small cell networks and fiber solutions that support mobile voice and data transmission for wireless carriers, cable companies and other enterprise customers. The company’s assets are positioned to enable network coverage and capacity, including the densification projects associated with 4G LTE and 5G deployments.

Its product and service offerings include ground-based tower sites that host multiple wireless operators, distributed small cell nodes and associated fiber backhaul used to connect sites into carrier networks, and site development and maintenance services.