In a report released today, Merrill Ross from Boenning & Scattergood initiated coverage with a Hold rating on Investors Real Estate ate (NYSE: IRET). The company’s shares closed on Friday at $5.57.
Ross wrote:
“We are initiating coverage of Trust (IRET) with a Neutral/Low risk rating. In 2016, IRET commenced on a strategic initiative that involved divesting non-core assets and becoming a pure-play multifamily REIT primarily invested in the upper Midwest. The company lowered the dividend in each of the past two years to $0.28, where we think it is stable, but we do not see much room for a dividend increase in the next few years. As we see it, the problem is that the markets that IRET has invested in have lower job growth than the national average and the current portfolio contains a mix of sub-institutional quality assets. This can be fixed through capital reallocation, but it will take time.”
According to TipRanks.com, Ross is a 1-star analyst with an average return of -0.8% and a 50.5% success rate. Ross covers the Financial sector, focusing on stocks such as Preferred Apartment Communities, NexPoint Residential Trust Inc, and Bluerock Residential Growth.
Investors Real Estate ate has an analyst consensus of Hold.
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Based on Investors Real Estate ate’s latest earnings release for the quarter ending July 31, the company reported a quarterly net profit of $2.35 million. In comparison, last year the company had a GAAP net loss of $11.26 million.
Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 27 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is positive on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders buying their shares of IRET in relation to earlier this year.
TipRanks has tracked 36,000 company insiders and found that a few of them are better than others when it comes to timing their transactions. See which 3 stocks are most likely to make moves following their insider activities.
Investors Real Estate Trust is a real estate investment trust, which engages in the acquisition and investment in real estate properties. It operates through the following business segments: Multifamily, Healthcare, and All Other. The company was founded on July 31, 1970 and is headquartered in Minot, ND.
