Howe & Rusling Inc. Lowers Position in American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT)

Howe & Rusling Inc. lowered its stake in American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT) by 6.8% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 2,305 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 167 shares during the quarter. Howe & Rusling Inc.’s holdings in American Tower were worth $536,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in American Tower by 41.8% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 6,395,906 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,243,333,000 after purchasing an additional 1,885,421 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its stake in shares of American Tower by 8.9% in the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 3,705,145 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $720,206,000 after buying an additional 302,676 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its holdings in shares of American Tower by 16.3% in the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 3,310,893 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $643,571,000 after buying an additional 464,429 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board lifted its stake in American Tower by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 1,536,255 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $298,617,000 after acquiring an additional 69,300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, ClearBridge Investments Ltd boosted its holdings in American Tower by 6.2% during the 2nd quarter. ClearBridge Investments Ltd now owns 1,442,759 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $280,443,000 after acquiring an additional 84,180 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.69% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on AMT shares. StockNews.com cut shares of American Tower from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company cut shares of American Tower from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $245.00 to $230.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Scotiabank decreased their price target on shares of American Tower from $248.00 to $236.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen boosted their target price on shares of American Tower from $226.00 to $239.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on American Tower from $240.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, September 23rd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $235.54.

American Tower Stock Performance

Shares of AMT stock opened at $200.88 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.69 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.27. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $220.12 and a 200-day simple moving average of $211.30. The company has a market cap of $93.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 84.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 0.84. American Tower Co. has a 12-month low of $170.46 and a 12-month high of $243.56.

American Tower (NYSE:AMT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.45 by ($1.56). The business had revenue of $2.52 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.77 billion. American Tower had a return on equity of 22.01% and a net margin of 10.05%. The company’s revenue was down 10.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.58 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that American Tower Co. will post 10.08 EPS for the current year.

American Tower Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 25th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, October 9th were given a dividend of $1.62 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, October 9th. This represents a $6.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.23%. American Tower’s payout ratio is 273.42%.

American Tower Profile

American Tower, one of the largest global REITs, is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of over 224,000 communications sites and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data center facilities.