Short Interest in Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE:AHT) Grows By 18.6%

Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE:AHT) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 158,000 shares, an increase of 18.6% from the December 15th total of 133,200 shares. Currently, 2.9% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 53,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.9 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ashford Hospitality Trust

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Ashford Hospitality Trust by 42.6% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 531,694 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $398,000 after buying an additional 158,882 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in Ashford Hospitality Trust by 24.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 195,330 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $146,000 after buying an additional 38,215 shares during the last quarter. PFG Investments LLC raised its stake in Ashford Hospitality Trust by 215.4% during the 3rd quarter. PFG Investments LLC now owns 94,025 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $70,000 after buying an additional 64,212 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its stake in Ashford Hospitality Trust by 4.9% during the 2nd quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 482,200 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $468,000 after buying an additional 22,400 shares during the last quarter. 41.04% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Ashford Hospitality Trust Price Performance

NYSE AHT traded up $0.17 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $8.82. The stock had a trading volume of 14,064 shares, compared to its average volume of 47,528. Ashford Hospitality Trust has a 1 year low of $5.20 and a 1 year high of $20.78. The stock has a market cap of $48.67 million, a PE ratio of -0.68 and a beta of 2.39. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $8.55 and a 200 day moving average price of $8.55.

Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 5th. The real estate investment trust reported ($12.39) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by ($12.99). Ashford Hospitality Trust had a negative return on equity of 12.89% and a net margin of 2.84%. The firm had revenue of $276.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $273.50 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.08 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Ashford Hospitality Trust will post -0.68 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, StockNews.com cut Ashford Hospitality Trust from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th.

Ashford Hospitality Trust Company Profile

Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc, together with its subsidiaries (Ashford Trust), is a real estate investment trust (REIT). While our portfolio currently consists of upscale hotels and upper upscale full-service hotels, our investment strategy is predominantly focused on investing in upper upscale full-service hotels in the United States that have revenue per available room (RevPAR) generally less than twice the U.S.