StockNews.com Begins Coverage on Realty Income (NYSE:O)

StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Realty Income (NYSE:O – Get Rating) in a report released on Thursday. The firm issued a sell rating on the real estate investment trust’s stock.

O has been the subject of several other reports. Raymond James cut shares of Realty Income from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note on Monday, January 9th. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on shares of Realty Income in a research note on Tuesday, January 17th. They set a neutral rating and a $72.00 target price for the company. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Realty Income from $68.00 to $70.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, February 23rd. Finally, Mizuho cut their target price on shares of Realty Income from $69.00 to $66.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 9th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Realty Income presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $72.00.

Realty Income Price Performance

Shares of Realty Income stock opened at $61.38 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $65.62 and a 200-day simple moving average of $63.78. The company has a current ratio of 1.85, a quick ratio of 1.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63. Realty Income has a 1-year low of $55.50 and a 1-year high of $75.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $40.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.23, a PEG ratio of 5.09 and a beta of 0.79.

Realty Income (NYSE:O – Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 21st. The real estate investment trust reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.98 by ($0.62). The firm had revenue of $888.65 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $840.57 million. Realty Income had a return on equity of 3.14% and a net margin of 26.00%. Realty Income’s quarterly revenue was up 29.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.94 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Realty Income will post 4.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Realty Income Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a mar 23 dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 3rd will be paid a $0.255 dividend. This is a boost from Realty Income’s previous mar 23 dividend of $0.25. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 31st. This represents a dividend yield of 4.8%. Realty Income’s dividend payout ratio is currently 214.79%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Realty Income

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Realty Income by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 98,517,484 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $5,733,718,000 after purchasing an additional 2,692,028 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Realty Income by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 57,015,332 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $3,318,291,000 after purchasing an additional 736,125 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Realty Income by 3.9% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 47,212,193 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $3,234,013,000 after purchasing an additional 1,784,464 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in shares of Realty Income by 13.6% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 18,951,549 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,202,097,000 after purchasing an additional 2,273,591 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Realty Income by 3.4% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,354,940 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $911,059,000 after purchasing an additional 465,470 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.56% of the company’s stock.

Realty Income Company Profile

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Realty Income Corp. is a real estate company, which engages in generating dependable monthly cash dividends from a consistent and predictable level of cash flow from operations. The company was founded by William E. Clark, Jr. and Evelyn Joan Clark in 1969 and is headquartered in San Diego, CA.