What happened
Hardly for the first time in its recent history, on Tuesday, Medical Properties Trust (MPW -8.68%) had a down session in the stock market. The share price of the specialty real estate investment trust (REIT) wilted by 0.5%, a decline that was essentially in line with the fall of the S&P 500 index on the day. Lingering bearish sentiment combined with an analyst's target price cut to sap investors' enthusiasm for the stock.
So what
Already under siege from determined short-sellers, Medical Properties Trust probably didn't need a prognosticator's price target trim, modest as it was. That's what it got, however, from KeyBanc's Austin Wurschmidt. Early Tuesday morning, he shaved $1 off his price target to land at a new figure of $15 per share. But he maintained his overweight (read: buy) recommendation on the shares.
It wasn't immediately clear why Wurschmidt made the change. It did, however, track with several other analysts' modifications in recent weeks.
Most notably, in mid-March, Bank of America Securities prognosticator Joshua Dennerlein downgraded his recommendation on the REIT to neutral from buy. He hasn't yet rediscovered his inner bull on the stock.
Now what
The two major factors keeping investors away from Medical Properties Trust are the persistence of those short-sellers (in fact, the REIT recently sued a major one, Viceroy Research), and the recent upheavals in the banking sector. The latter affects all REITs, as they are constantly in need of financing on advantageous terms, and often rely on banks to provide them with the capital they need to acquire and maintain their properties.
