State of Michigan Retirement System Raises Position in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR)

State of Michigan Retirement System increased its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) by 7.1% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 88,881 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after buying an additional 5,900 shares during the quarter. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Digital Realty Trust were worth $13,514,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Digital Realty Trust in the 4th quarter worth about $2,141,890,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 2.0% in the 1st 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. bought a new stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust during the 4th quarter worth $107,372,000. Kodai Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in Digital Realty Trust during the fourth quarter worth about $59,087,000. Finally, Russell Investments Group Ltd. boosted its stake in Digital Realty Trust by 13.6% in the fourth quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 2,118,834 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $285,513,000 after acquiring an additional 253,755 shares during the last quarter. 99.71% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Digital Realty Trust Price Performance

DLR stock opened at $149.15 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $151.08 and its 200 day moving average is $145.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a current ratio of 1.78. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a 52 week low of $113.94 and a 52 week high of $162.58. The firm has a market cap of $46.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.83, a P/E/G ratio of 10.97 and a beta of 0.59.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, July 25th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.20 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.63 by ($1.43). Digital Realty Trust had a return on equity of 5.93% and a net margin of 20.58%. The firm had revenue of $1.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.38 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.68 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Digital Realty Trust, Inc. will post 6.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be paid a dividend of $1.22 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.27%. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio is 135.56%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Jean F. H. P. Mandeville sold 600 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.26, for a total transaction of $90,156.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,055 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,360,604.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.17% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently commented on the company. Barclays upped their price objective on Digital Realty Trust from $123.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. BMO Capital Markets raised shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $144.00 to $170.00 in a research report on Wednesday, June 26th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $144.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, June 3rd. HSBC raised their price target on Digital Realty Trust from $115.00 to $118.00 and gave the stock a “reduce” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Argus lowered Digital Realty Trust from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Three equities research 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $154.00.

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.