W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) vs. Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) Financial Analysis

Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) and W.P. Carey (NYSE:WPC) are both finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends, earnings, valuation and institutional ownership.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

41.0% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 73.7% of W.P. Carey shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of W.P. Carey shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Ashford Hospitality Trust and W.P. Carey’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ashford Hospitality Trust	-16.28%	N/A	-6.00%
W.P. Carey	29.35%	6.29%	2.86%

Volatility & Risk

Ashford Hospitality Trust has a beta of 1.69, indicating that its share price is 69% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, W.P. Carey has a beta of 0.77, indicating that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Ashford Hospitality Trust and W.P. Carey, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ashford Hospitality Trust	1	1	0	0	1.50
W.P. Carey	1	6	4	0	2.27

W.P. Carey has a consensus target price of $73.00, indicating a potential downside of 1.22%. Given W.P. Carey’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe W.P. Carey is more favorable than Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Dividends

Ashford Hospitality Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 8.0%. W.P. Carey pays an annual dividend of $3.72 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.0%. Ashford Hospitality Trust pays out -0.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. W.P. Carey pays out 159.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. W.P. Carey has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Ashford Hospitality Trust is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Ashford Hospitality Trust and W.P. Carey”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ashford Hospitality Trust	$1.10 billion	0.02	-$179.84 million	($35.47)	-0.08
W.P. Carey	$1.76 billion	9.35	$466.36 million	$2.34	31.58

W.P. Carey has higher revenue and earnings than Ashford Hospitality Trust. Ashford Hospitality Trust is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than W.P. Carey, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

W.P. Carey beats Ashford Hospitality Trust on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Ashford Hospitality Trust

Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc., together with its subsidiaries (Ashford Trust), is a real estate investment trust (REIT). While our portfolio currently consists of upscale hotels and upper upscale full-service hotels, our investment strategy is predominantly focused on investing in upper upscale full-service hotels in the United States that have revenue per available room (RevPAR) generally less than twice the U.S. national average, and in all methods including direct real estate, equity, and debt. We currently anticipate future investments will predominantly be in upper upscale hotels. We own our lodging investments and conduct our business through Ashford Hospitality Limited Partnership (Ashford Trust OP), our operating partnership. Ashford OP General Partner LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashford Trust, serves as the sole general partner of our operating partnership.

About W.P. Carey

W. P. Carey ranks among the largest net lease REITs with a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality, operationally critical commercial real estate, which includes 1,424 net lease properties covering approximately 173 million square feet and a portfolio of 89 self-storage operating properties as of December 31, 2023. With offices in New York, London, Amsterdam and Dallas, the company remains focused on investing primarily in single-tenant, industrial, warehouse and retail properties located in the U.S. and Northern and Western Europe, under long-term net leases with built-in rent escalations.