Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:PDM) Short Interest Down 40.1% in November

Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE:PDM) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest in November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,420,000 shares, a decline of 40.1% from the October 31st total of 4,040,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 794,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.0 days. Currently, 2.0% of the company’s shares are short sold.

Institutional Trading of Piedmont Office Realty Trust

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Piedmont Office Realty Trust by 2.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,219,805 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $135,115,000 after acquiring an additional 394,282 shares during the last quarter. Wilsey Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Piedmont Office Realty Trust by 50.2% during the second quarter. Wilsey Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,899,800 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $28,274,000 after acquiring an additional 1,302,681 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Piedmont Office Realty Trust by 1.5% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,217,213 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $32,499,000 after acquiring an additional 48,944 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in shares of Piedmont Office Realty Trust by 0.9% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,719,641 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $12,467,000 after acquiring an additional 14,831 shares during the period. Finally, Systematic Financial Management LP boosted its holdings in shares of Piedmont Office Realty Trust by 4.3% during the third quarter. Systematic Financial Management LP now owns 1,162,619 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $11,742,000 after acquiring an additional 47,783 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.48% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have weighed in on PDM. Truist Financial reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $11.00 target price (up from $10.00) on shares of Piedmont Office Realty Trust in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on Piedmont Office Realty Trust from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st.

Piedmont Office Realty Trust Stock Down 1.0 %

Shares of PDM traded down $0.10 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $9.68. The stock had a trading volume of 1,405,895 shares, compared to its average volume of 869,998. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $10.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $8.81. Piedmont Office Realty Trust has a twelve month low of $5.81 and a twelve month high of $11.11. The firm has a market cap of $1.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -15.61 and a beta of 1.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 2.22 and a quick ratio of 2.22.

Piedmont Office Realty Trust (NYSE:PDM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The real estate investment trust reported ($0.09) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.37 by ($0.46). Piedmont Office Realty Trust had a negative net margin of 13.47% and a negative return on equity of 4.61%. The firm had revenue of $139.29 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $143.56 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.43 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Piedmont Office Realty Trust will post 1.49 EPS for the current year.

Piedmont Office Realty Trust Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 22nd will be paid a $0.125 dividend. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 22nd. Piedmont Office Realty Trust’s dividend payout ratio is -80.64%.

Piedmont Office Realty Trust Company Profile

Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Inc (also referred to herein as "Piedmont" or the "Company") (NYSE: PDM) is an owner, manager, developer, redeveloper and operator of high-quality, Class A office properties located primarily in major U.S. Sunbelt markets. The Company is a fully-integrated, self-managed real estate investment trust ("REIT") with local management offices in each of its markets and is investment-grade rated by Standard & Poor's and Moody's.