Empire State Realty Trust (NYSE:ESRT) Cut to Sell at StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Empire State Realty Trust (NYSE:ESRT – Get Rating) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report released on Saturday morning.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on ESRT. BMO Capital Markets downgraded shares of Empire State Realty Trust from a market perform rating to an underperform rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $11.00 to $8.00 in a research report on Monday, March 7th. KeyCorp downgraded shares of Empire State Realty Trust from an overweight rating to an underweight rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $13.00 to $8.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 13th. Zacks Investment Research downgraded shares of Empire State Realty Trust from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, May 2nd. Finally, Evercore ISI raised shares of Empire State Realty Trust from an in-line rating to an outperform rating and set a $11.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $10.50.

Shares of Empire State Realty Trust stock opened at $7.82 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 5.94, a quick ratio of 5.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.37. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $9.19. The stock has a market cap of $1.33 billion, a P/E ratio of -65.17, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 0.99. Empire State Realty Trust has a 12-month low of $7.70 and a 12-month high of $13.11.

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 31st. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 15th were paid a $0.035 dividend. This represents a $0.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.79%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 14th. Empire State Realty Trust’s payout ratio is -116.67%.

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ESRT. Marshall Wace North America L.P. bought a new position in Empire State Realty Trust in the 1st quarter worth about $67,000. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Empire State Realty Trust by 4.7% in the 1st quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,918,406 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $30,311,000 after purchasing an additional 86,889 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its stake in Empire State Realty Trust by 21.1% in the 2nd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,468,128 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $53,618,000 after purchasing an additional 779,024 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its stake in Empire State Realty Trust by 320.8% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 106,142 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,065,000 after purchasing an additional 80,918 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James & Associates lifted its stake in Empire State Realty Trust by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 217,708 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $2,184,000 after acquiring an additional 7,480 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 77.78% of the company’s stock.

About Empire State Realty Trust (Get Rating)

Empire State Realty Trust, Inc (NYSE: ESRT), a leading real estate investment trust (REIT), owns, manages, operates, acquires and repositions office and retail properties in Manhattan and the greater New York metropolitan area, including the Empire State Building, the World's Most Famous Building.

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