AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc Buys 5,267 Shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. $DLR

AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc lifted its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) by 9.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 63,241 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,267 shares during the period. AEGON ASSET MANAGEMENT UK Plc’s holdings in Digital Realty Trust were worth $10,930,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Tufton Capital Management lifted its stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 0.8% during the third quarter. Tufton Capital Management now owns 40,128 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $6,937,000 after acquiring an additional 313 shares during the period. OneAscent Financial Services LLC grew its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 24.4% during the third quarter. OneAscent Financial Services LLC now owns 9,296 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,607,000 after purchasing an additional 1,826 shares during the period. WealthShield Partners LLC raised its holdings in Digital Realty Trust by 1.9% in the third quarter. WealthShield Partners LLC now owns 17,453 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $3,017,000 after purchasing an additional 324 shares during the period. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI boosted its position in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 33.9% during the third quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI now owns 2,570 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $445,000 after purchasing an additional 651 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc grew its holdings in shares of Digital Realty Trust by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 43,958 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $7,599,000 after buying an additional 114 shares during the period. 99.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Mary Hogan Preusse sold 4,166 shares of Digital Realty Trust stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $157.42, for a total value of $655,811.72. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.17% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently commented on the company. Wall Street Zen downgraded Digital Realty Trust from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft began coverage on Digital Realty Trust in a research report on Monday, January 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $180.00 price target on the stock. Daiwa Capital Markets started coverage on Digital Realty Trust in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. They set a “buy” rating and a $210.00 price objective on the stock. Mizuho dropped their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $191.00 to $180.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 12th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $200.00 to $212.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $193.22.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Performance

DLR opened at $159.27 on Monday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $157.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $166.17. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has a 52-week low of $129.95 and a 52-week high of $184.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80, a quick ratio of 2.02 and a current ratio of 2.02. The firm has a market capitalization of $54.71 billion, a PE ratio of 41.15, a PEG ratio of 3.70 and a beta of 1.11.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 31st. The real estate investment trust reported $0.15 earnings per share for the quarter. Digital Realty Trust had a return on equity of 6.41% and a net margin of 23.67%.The firm had revenue of $1.58 billion during the quarter. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Digital Realty Trust, Inc. will post 7.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 16th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 15th were given a dividend of $1.22 per share. This represents a $4.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio is 126.10%.

About Digital Realty Trust

Digital Realty Trust, Inc (NYSE: DLR) is a real estate investment trust that owns, acquires and operates carrier-neutral data centers and provides related colocation and interconnection solutions. The company focuses on large-scale, mission-critical facilities that support the physical infrastructure needs of cloud providers, enterprises, network operators and content companies. Digital Realty’s offerings are designed to enable secure, reliable and highly available IT infrastructure with an emphasis on power density, cooling, and physical security.

Digital Realty’s product set spans wholesale data center space, turnkey build-to-suit facilities, and retail colocation suites, complemented by interconnection services that allow customers to establish private and public connections to networks, cloud on-ramps and other ecosystem partners.