Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT) Shares Up 2.6% – Time to Buy?

Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) shares shot up 2.6% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $4.88 and last traded at $4.97. 1,098,403 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 59% from the average session volume of 2,662,086 shares. The stock had previously closed at $4.84.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have weighed in on UNIT shares. Raymond James upgraded shares of Uniti Group from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $6.00 to $8.00 in a research note on Monday, February 24th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Uniti Group from $5.50 to $6.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Monday, December 23rd.

Uniti Group Trading Up 1.9 %

The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $5.39 and its 200-day simple moving average is $5.54. The firm has a market cap of $1.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.02 and a beta of 1.70.

Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 21st. The real estate investment trust reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by $0.02. Uniti Group had a net margin of 8.82% and a negative return on equity of 4.12%. The company had revenue of $293.32 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $294.59 million. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Uniti Group Inc. will post 1.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Uniti Group

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Signaturefd LLC boosted its position in Uniti Group by 51.3% in the fourth quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 8,460 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $47,000 after purchasing an additional 2,870 shares during the last quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Uniti Group in the 4th quarter worth approximately $68,000. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Uniti Group in the third quarter worth approximately $70,000. Handelsbanken Fonder AB bought a new stake in Uniti Group during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $71,000. Finally, Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd purchased a new stake in Uniti Group during the third quarter valued at approximately $74,000. Institutional investors own 87.51% of the company’s stock.

About Uniti Group

Uniti Group, Inc is a real estate investment trust company, which engages in the acquisition, construction, and leasing of properties. It operates through the following business segments: Uniti Leasing, Uniti Fiber, and Corporate. The Uniti Leasing segment involves mission-critical communications assets on exclusive or shared-tenant basis, and dark fiber network.