Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) Raised to Overweight at Barclays

Barclays upgraded shares of Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research report report published on Monday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has $104.00 price objective on the real estate investment trust’s stock, down from their prior price objective of $117.00.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on shares of Crown Castle from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Crown Castle from $103.00 to $118.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Crown Castle from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $105.00 to $100.00 in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Jefferies Financial Group cut Crown Castle from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $127.00 to $84.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Crown Castle from $105.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Crown Castle presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $113.00.

Crown Castle Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of CCI stock opened at $86.61 on Monday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $97.57 and its 200 day moving average price is $105.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $37.64 billion, a PE ratio of 30.71 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43, a current ratio of 0.54 and a quick ratio of 0.54. Crown Castle has a 1-year low of $84.20 and a 1-year high of $120.92.

Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.70 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.73 by ($1.03). Crown Castle had a return on equity of 20.98% and a net margin of 18.59%. The company had revenue of $1.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.77 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Crown Castle will post 6.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Crown Castle Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th were given a dividend of $1.565 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, December 13th. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 7.23%. Crown Castle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 221.99%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CCI. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Crown Castle by 3.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 20,875,581 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $2,476,470,000 after purchasing an additional 747,390 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Crown Castle by 23.8% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 17,528,597 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $2,079,417,000 after buying an additional 3,371,186 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Crown Castle by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 12,105,151 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,434,229,000 after buying an additional 151,990 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in Crown Castle by 1.1% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 6,177,250 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $603,518,000 after buying an additional 67,072 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC increased its stake in shares of Crown Castle by 7.2% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 5,174,920 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $613,900,000 after acquiring an additional 348,296 shares during the last quarter. 90.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Crown Castle Company Profile

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.