Traders Buy High Volume of Put Options on Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR)

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:DLR) saw unusually large options trading on Thursday. Stock investors acquired 3,148 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of 87% compared to the average daily volume of 1,685 put options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

DLR has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Digital Realty Trust from $230.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 24th. Truist Financial lowered their target price on shares of Digital Realty Trust from $225.00 to $220.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Digital Realty Trust from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, July 25th. KeyCorp restated a “sector weight” rating on shares of Digital Realty Trust in a report on Friday, July 24th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn assumed coverage on shares of Digital Realty Trust in a research report on Monday, September 21st. They set a “buy” rating and a $227.00 price objective for the company. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-five have given a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Digital Realty Trust currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $220.26.

Digital Realty Trust Stock Up 1.9%

Shares of NYSE DLR traded up $3.44 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $183.21. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,406,934 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,317,542. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 1.06 and a quick ratio of 1.06. The firm has a market capitalization of $67.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 88.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.31 and a beta of 0.99. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $181.91 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $182.67. Digital Realty Trust has a 1 year low of $146.23 and a 1 year high of $208.14.

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.52 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $1.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.75 billion. Digital Realty Trust had a return on equity of 3.34% and a net margin of 11.80%. On average, equities analysts predict that Digital Realty Trust will post 8.37 EPS for the current year.

Digital Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 15th were given a dividend of $1.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 15th. This represents a $4.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.7%. Digital Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio is currently 236.89%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Digital Realty Trust news, Director Mark Patterson sold 200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $193.96, for a total transaction of $38,792.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 6,322 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,226,215.12. This trade represents a 3.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.15% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Gables Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Digital Realty Trust in the 2nd quarter valued at about $29,000. Bell Investment Advisors Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust during the second quarter worth approximately $31,000. First Community Trust NA purchased a new stake in shares of Digital Realty Trust during the third quarter worth approximately $31,000. Ashurst Perkins Coie Trust Co acquired a new stake in Digital Realty Trust in the third quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, Solstein Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Digital Realty Trust in the second quarter valued at approximately $32,000. 99.71% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Digital Realty Trust Company Profile

Digital Realty Trust, Inc is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and develops data center facilities for businesses, cloud service providers, information technology companies and telecommunications organizations. The company provides the physical infrastructure needed to support data storage, networking, cloud computing and other digital operations.

Its services include data center colocation, interconnection and private connectivity solutions. Digital Realty also offers access to cloud and network providers through its PlatformDIGITAL platform, which is designed to help customers deploy, connect and manage their digital infrastructure across multiple locations.

Founded in 2001, Digital Realty serves customers through a global portfolio of data centers and related facilities across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.