Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NYSE:CMTG) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NYSE:CMTG) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest in March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,850,000 shares, a growth of 5.5% from the February 29th total of 3,650,000 shares. Currently, 3.0% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 312,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 12.3 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CMTG has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lowered their price target on shares of Claros Mortgage Trust from $10.75 to $9.75 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, February 23rd. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Claros Mortgage Trust from $11.50 to $10.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have assigned a hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $10.44.

Institutional Trading of Claros Mortgage Trust

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CMTG. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Claros Mortgage Trust by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 11,425,527 shares of the company’s stock valued at $155,730,000 after purchasing an additional 55,256 shares during the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Claros Mortgage Trust by 11,644.8% during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 14,609,072 shares of the company’s stock valued at $199,122,000 after acquiring an additional 14,484,684 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in shares of Claros Mortgage Trust by 6.9% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 73,997 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,009,000 after acquiring an additional 4,786 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in shares of Claros Mortgage Trust by 4.5% during the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 120,734 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,646,000 after acquiring an additional 5,169 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC boosted its holdings in shares of Claros Mortgage Trust by 301.9% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 146,352 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,995,000 after acquiring an additional 109,934 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 89.53% of the company’s stock.

Claros Mortgage Trust Trading Down 2.4 %

CMTG opened at $9.34 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 467.23 and a beta of 1.58. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $10.17 and its 200-day moving average is $11.36. Claros Mortgage Trust has a 52-week low of $9.06 and a 52-week high of $15.25. The company has a quick ratio of 25.03, a current ratio of 25.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.09.

Claros Mortgage Trust (NYSE:CMTG) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 20th. The company reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.12 by $0.19. The company had revenue of $75.98 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $72.79 million. Claros Mortgage Trust had a net margin of 1.97% and a return on equity of 2.01%. Analysts expect that Claros Mortgage Trust will post 0.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Claros Mortgage Trust Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Friday, March 29th will be paid a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 10.71%. Claros Mortgage Trust’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5,002.50%.

Claros Mortgage Trust Company Profile

Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc operates as a real estate investment trust. It focuses on originating senior and subordinate loans on transitional commercial real estate assets in the United States. The company has elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust. As a result, it would not be subject to corporate income tax on that portion of its net income that is distributed to shareholders.