91,000 Shares in Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR) Bought by BDF Gestion

BDF Gestion purchased a new position in shares of Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 91,000 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $6,310,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in EQR. Norges Bank bought a new position in Equity Residential in the 4th quarter valued at about $2,143,388,000. Davis Asset Management L.P. acquired a new stake in Equity Residential during the 4th quarter worth approximately $61,160,000. First Eagle Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Equity Residential by 5.9% in the 4th quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 9,325,268 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $570,333,000 after purchasing an additional 516,941 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. grew its holdings in Equity Residential by 77.5% in the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 1,061,862 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $67,014,000 after buying an additional 463,664 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in Equity Residential by 793.8% during the 1st quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 444,791 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $28,071,000 after buying an additional 395,029 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.68% of the company’s stock.

Equity Residential Trading Up 1.3 %

NYSE:EQR traded up $0.95 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $71.34. 1,206,120 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,988,336. Equity Residential has a fifty-two week low of $52.57 and a fifty-two week high of $72.32. The company has a current ratio of 0.21, a quick ratio of 0.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.61, a PEG ratio of 4.06 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $68.27 and a 200-day simple moving average of $64.47.

Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 29th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.47 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.96 by ($0.49). Equity Residential had a net margin of 32.83% and a return on equity of 8.53%. The business had revenue of $734.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $735.26 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.94 EPS. Equity Residential’s revenue was up 2.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Equity Residential will post 3.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Equity Residential Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 12th. Investors of record on Monday, July 1st were paid a $0.675 dividend. This represents a $2.70 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, July 1st. Equity Residential’s dividend payout ratio is currently 112.03%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have commented on EQR. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Equity Residential from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Evercore ISI cut Equity Residential from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $70.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, May 13th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Equity Residential from $68.00 to $70.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 14th. UBS Group lifted their target price on Equity Residential from $75.00 to $82.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 18th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Equity Residential from $66.00 to $69.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, May 31st. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Equity Residential has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $70.91.

Insider Activity at Equity Residential

In other news, CFO Robert Garechana sold 6,357 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, June 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.08, for a total transaction of $439,141.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 14,576 shares in the company, valued at $1,006,910.08. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Equity Residential Company Profile

Equity Residential is committed to creating communities where people thrive. The Company, a member of the S&P 500, is focused on the acquisition, development and management of residential properties located in and around dynamic cities that attract affluent long-term renters. Equity Residential owns or has investments in 305 properties consisting of 80,683 apartment units, with an established presence in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Seattle, San Francisco and Southern California, and an expanding presence in Denver, Atlanta, Dallas/Ft.