Reviewing Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) and Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA)

Smartstop Self Storage REIT (NYSE:SMA) and Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR) are both real estate companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, dividends, risk, valuation and institutional ownership.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.7% of Digital Realty Trust shares are held by institutional investors. 5.7% of Smartstop Self Storage REIT shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.2% of Digital Realty Trust shares are held by company 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.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Smartstop Self Storage REIT and Digital Realty Trust, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	1	3	4	2	2.70
Digital Realty Trust	0	6	24	1	2.84

Smartstop Self Storage REIT presently has a consensus price target of $36.44, indicating a potential upside of 8.14%. Digital Realty Trust has a consensus price target of $218.17, indicating a potential upside of 12.31%. Given Digital Realty Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Digital Realty Trust is more favorable than Smartstop Self Storage REIT.

Risk & Volatility

Smartstop Self Storage REIT has a beta of 0.5, indicating that its stock price is 50% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Digital Realty Trust has a beta of 1.03, indicating that its stock price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Dividends

Smartstop Self Storage REIT pays an annual dividend of $1.63 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.8%. Digital Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $4.88 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Smartstop Self Storage REIT pays out 1,086.7% of its earnings in the form of a dividend, suggesting it may not have sufficient earnings to cover its dividend payment in the future. 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.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Smartstop Self Storage REIT and Digital Realty Trust”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	$281.14 million	6.64	-$1.55 million	$0.15	224.63
Digital Realty Trust	$6.11 billion	11.17	$1.31 billion	$2.06	94.30

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

Profitability

This table compares Smartstop Self Storage REIT and Digital Realty Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Smartstop Self Storage REIT	4.38%	1.00%	0.54%
Digital Realty Trust	11.80%	3.34%	1.59%

Summary

Digital Realty Trust beats Smartstop Self Storage REIT on 13 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Smartstop Self Storage REIT

Symmetry Medical Inc. (Symmetry) is a medical device solutions company, including surgical instruments, orthopedic implants, and sterilization cases and trays. The Company designs, develops and offers worldwide production and supply chain capabilities for these products to customers in the orthopedic industry, and other medical device markets (including but not limited to arthroscopy, dental, laparoscopy, osteobiologic, and endoscopy segments). It also manufactures specialized non-healthcare products, primarily in the aerospace industry. The Company operates in two segments: original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solutions and symmetry surgical. On August 15, 2011, the Company acquired PSC Industries, Inc’s Olsen Medical division. On December 29, 2011 it acquired the surgical instruments product portfolio from Codman & Shurtleff, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson Company.

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.