American Tower Surpasses Q2 FFO and Revenue Estimates

American Tower AMT came out with quarterly funds from operations (FFO) of $2.79 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.53 per share. This compares to FFO of $2.46 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents an FFO surprise of 10.28%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this wireless communications infrastructure company would post FFO of $2.55 per share when it actually produced FFO of $2.79, delivering a surprise of 9.41%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus FFO estimates four times.

American Tower, which belongs to the Zacks REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry, posted revenues of $2.9 billion for the quarter ended June 2024, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.36%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $2.77 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future FFO expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call.

American Tower shares have lost about 0.4% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 14.5%.

What's Next for American Tower?

While American Tower has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's FFO outlook. Not only does this include current consensus FFO expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for American Tower: favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus FFO estimate is $2.61 on $2.87 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $10.45 on $11.17 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, REIT and Equity Trust - Other is currently in the bottom 41% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

Another stock from the same industry, Medical Properties MPW, has yet to report results for the quarter ended June 2024.

This health care real estate investment trust is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.21 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -56.3%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 2.8% higher over the last 30 days to the current level.

Medical Properties' revenues are expected to be $258.43 million, down 23.4% from the year-ago quarter.

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