Argus Investors Counsel Inc. Has $669,000 Stock Holdings in American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT)

Argus Investors Counsel Inc. lowered its stake in shares of American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT) by 31.3% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 3,075 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 1,400 shares during the quarter. Argus Investors Counsel Inc.’s holdings in American Tower were worth $669,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Minot DeBlois Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of American Tower in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Roxbury Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of American Tower in the fourth quarter valued at $32,000. Graney & King LLC acquired a new position in shares of American Tower during the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Lowe Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of American Tower by 218.0% during the first quarter. Lowe Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 159 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 109 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Crowley Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of American Tower in the 4th quarter worth about $37,000. Institutional investors own 92.69% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on AMT. Hsbc Global Res raised American Tower to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 27th. UBS Group upped their price target on American Tower from $245.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 30th. Scotiabank raised their price objective on American Tower from $234.00 to $248.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of American Tower from $240.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 1st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of American Tower from $230.00 to $240.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $240.25.

American Tower Stock Performance

Shares of AMT opened at $217.69 on Friday. American Tower Co. has a 1 year low of $172.51 and a 1 year high of $243.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.27, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.69. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $214.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $203.08. The firm has a market cap of $101.91 billion, a PE ratio of 91.85, a PEG ratio of 1.29 and a beta of 0.81.

American Tower (NYSE:AMT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.41 by $0.34. The business had revenue of $2.56 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.54 billion. American Tower had a return on equity of 22.01% and a net margin of 10.05%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.79 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that American Tower Co. will post 10.14 EPS for the current year.

American Tower Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 11th. Investors of record on Friday, June 13th will be paid a dividend of $1.70 per share. This represents a $6.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.12%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 13th. American Tower’s payout ratio is currently 174.81%.

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.