Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday.

Separately, Alliance Global Partners downgraded Gladstone Land from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $16.00 to $14.50 in a research report on Friday, November 8th.

Gladstone Land Stock Performance

NASDAQ LAND opened at $11.15 on Monday. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $10.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $12.36. Gladstone Land has a twelve month low of $10.27 and a twelve month high of $15.36. The company has a market capitalization of $403.46 million, a PE ratio of -38.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a current ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77.

Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.10) by $0.19. Gladstone Land had a return on equity of 1.89% and a net margin of 15.59%. The firm had revenue of $21.10 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $20.45 million. On average, research analysts predict that Gladstone Land will post 0.52 earnings per share for the current year.

Gladstone Land Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, January 27th were paid a dividend of $0.0467 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 24th. This is a positive change from Gladstone Land’s previous dividend of $0.04. This represents a yield of 5.33%. Gladstone Land’s dividend payout ratio is currently -193.10%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Gladstone Land

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Larson Financial Group LLC increased its stake in Gladstone Land by 224.2% during the third quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 1,929 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 1,334 shares during the last quarter. Hager Investment Management Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Gladstone Land in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Gladstone Land in the third quarter valued at about $50,000. KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS acquired a new stake in shares of Gladstone Land in the fourth quarter valued at about $62,000. Finally, AlphaQuest LLC grew its stake in shares of Gladstone Land by 63.2% in the fourth quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 5,841 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $63,000 after buying an additional 2,261 shares in the last quarter. 53.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Gladstone Land

Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The Company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 169 farms, comprised of approximately 116,000 acres in 15 different states and over 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at a total of approximately $1.6 billion.