Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA Decreases Stock Position in STAG Industrial, Inc. (NYSE:STAG)

Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA decreased its holdings in shares of STAG Industrial, Inc. (NYSE:STAG) by 1.6% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 4,632,307 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after selling 75,537 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA owned approximately 2.54% of STAG Industrial worth $156,665,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Cerity Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of STAG Industrial by 32.7% in the third quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 18,774 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $734,000 after buying an additional 4,629 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its position in STAG Industrial by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 24,500 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $958,000 after purchasing an additional 880 shares in the last quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC grew its stake in shares of STAG Industrial by 140.4% during the 3rd quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC now owns 22,963 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $898,000 after purchasing an additional 13,411 shares during the period. Edgestream Partners L.P. purchased a new position in shares of STAG Industrial during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $370,000. Finally, Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its stake in shares of STAG Industrial by 142.3% in the 3rd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 5,937 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $232,000 after purchasing an additional 3,487 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.67% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on STAG shares. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on STAG Industrial from $40.00 to $38.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Raymond James boosted their price objective on STAG Industrial from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price target on shares of STAG Industrial from $40.00 to $37.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $40.38.

STAG Industrial Price Performance

STAG stock opened at $32.88 on Friday. STAG Industrial, Inc. has a 1 year low of $32.27 and a 1 year high of $41.63. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.14 billion, a PE ratio of 31.62 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.36. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $35.25 and a 200-day simple moving average of $35.94.

STAG Industrial (NYSE:STAG) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.61 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.18 by $0.43. STAG Industrial had a net margin of 24.64% and a return on equity of 5.51%. Equities research analysts anticipate that STAG Industrial, Inc. will post 2.47 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

STAG Industrial Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were given a $0.1242 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 28th. This represents a yield of 4.25%. This is an increase from STAG Industrial’s previous dividend of $0.12. STAG Industrial’s payout ratio is currently 143.27%.

Insider Activity

In other STAG Industrial news, Director Benjamin S. Butcher sold 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $35.10, for a total transaction of $1,755,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 9,632 shares in the company, valued at $338,083.20. This represents a 83.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 1.10% of the company’s stock.

STAG Industrial Company Profile

STAG Industrial, Inc is a real estate investment company, which engages in acquiring, owning, and managing single-tenant, industrial real estate assets. It offers industrial real estate operating platform to real estate ownership. The company was founded by Benjamin S. Butcher on July 21, 2010 and is headquartered in Boston, MA.