Investors Purchase High Volume of Call Options on Crown Castle (NYSE:CCI)

Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE:CCI) saw some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Stock investors purchased 5,622 call options on the company. This is an increase of 114% compared to the typical volume of 2,632 call options.

Crown Castle Stock Performance

Shares of CCI stock opened at $103.20 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $91.00 and a 200-day moving average price of $101.49. Crown Castle has a 52 week low of $84.20 and a 52 week high of $120.92. The firm has a market capitalization of $44.85 billion, a PE ratio of 36.59 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a quick ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.43.

Crown Castle Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Investors of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a $1.565 dividend. This represents a $6.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.07%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. Crown Castle’s payout ratio is 221.99%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on CCI. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on shares of Crown Castle from $100.00 to $85.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Raymond James upgraded shares of Crown Castle from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $128.00 to $122.00 in a research note on Friday. Citizens Jmp upgraded shares of Crown Castle to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 27th. Barclays upgraded shares of Crown Castle from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $117.00 to $104.00 in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Finally, JMP Securities initiated coverage on shares of Crown Castle in a research note on Monday, January 27th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $115.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $109.12.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Crown Castle

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Crown Castle by 10.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 62,499,455 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $5,672,451,000 after buying an additional 5,934,615 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Crown Castle by 3.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 20,875,581 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $2,476,470,000 after buying an additional 747,390 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Crown Castle by 18.9% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 20,849,846 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,892,332,000 after buying an additional 3,321,249 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Crown Castle by 1.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 12,333,158 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $1,119,225,000 after buying an additional 228,007 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Crown Castle during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $561,714,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.77% of the company’s stock.

Crown Castle Company Profile

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.