Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) and Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR) Critical Contrast

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) and Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR) are both large-cap real estate companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, dividends, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Digital Realty Trust and Lamar Advertising, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Digital Realty Trust	0	6	25	2	2.88
Lamar Advertising	0	3	2	0	2.40

Digital Realty Trust currently has a consensus price target of $220.26, suggesting a potential upside of 22.35%. Lamar Advertising has a consensus price target of $161.00, suggesting a potential upside of 3.78%. Given Digital Realty Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Digital Realty Trust is more favorable than Lamar Advertising.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.7% of Digital Realty Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 93.8% of Lamar Advertising shares are held by institutional investors. 0.2% of Digital Realty Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 15.2% of Lamar Advertising shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Dividends

Digital Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $4.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.7%. Lamar Advertising pays an annual dividend of $6.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.3%. Digital Realty Trust pays out 236.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Lamar Advertising pays out 120.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. Lamar Advertising has raised its dividend for 5 consecutive years. Lamar Advertising is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Profitability

This table compares Digital Realty Trust and Lamar Advertising’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Digital Realty Trust	11.80%	3.34%	1.59%
Lamar Advertising	23.90%	54.94%	8.04%

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Digital Realty Trust and Lamar Advertising”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Digital Realty Trust	$6.11 billion	10.93	$1.31 billion	$2.06	87.39
Lamar Advertising	$2.33 billion	6.77	$587.15 million	$5.48	28.31

Digital Realty Trust has higher revenue and earnings than Lamar Advertising. Lamar Advertising is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Digital Realty Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk and Volatility

Digital Realty Trust has a beta of 0.99, meaning that its share price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Lamar Advertising has a beta of 1.2, meaning that its share price is 20% more volatile than the S&P 500.

About Digital Realty Trust

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. operates as a real estate investment trust, which engages in the provision of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. It serves the following industries: artificial intelligence (AI), networks, cloud, digital media, mobile, financial services, healthcare, and gaming. The company was founded on March 9, 2004, and is headquartered in Dallas, TX.

About Lamar Advertising

Lamar Advertising Company operates as an outdoor advertising company in the United States and Canada. The company owns and operates billboards, logo signs, and transit advertising displays, as well as rents space for advertising on billboards, buses, shelters, benches, logo plates, and in airport terminals. Lamar Advertising Company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.