Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) has been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the fourteen research firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and four have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $112.64.

CCI has been the topic of several recent research reports. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $110.00 to $105.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price objective on Crown Castle from $110.00 to $109.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 22nd. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $111.00 to $112.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $115.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, April 19th. Finally, Bank of America dropped their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $120.00 to $105.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 19th.

Institutional Trading of Crown Castle

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. United Services Automobile Association raised its position in shares of Crown Castle by 23.1% in the 3rd quarter. United Services Automobile Association now owns 13,411 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,234,000 after acquiring an additional 2,516 shares in the last quarter. Court Place Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Crown Castle during the fourth quarter valued at $201,000. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its position in shares of Crown Castle by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 117,914 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $10,852,000 after purchasing an additional 542 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 8,611.0% in the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 703,236 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $81,006,000 after purchasing an additional 695,163 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Manning & Napier Group LLC bought a new stake in Crown Castle during the 4th quarter valued at about $5,005,000. 90.77% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

NYSE CCI opened at $97.31 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $42.28 billion, a PE ratio of 30.41, a P/E/G ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 0.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.73, a quick ratio of 0.42 and a current ratio of 0.42. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $101.99 and a 200-day moving average of $105.63. Crown Castle has a 52-week low of $84.72 and a 52-week high of $119.60.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.63 by ($0.92). The business had revenue of $1.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. Crown Castle had a net margin of 20.32% and a return on equity of 21.30%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 7.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.91 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Crown Castle will post 6.59 EPS for the current year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a $1.565 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $6.26 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.43%. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is currently 195.63%.

About Crown Castle

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.