Contrasting Sunrise Realty Trust (NASDAQ:SUNS) & Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT)

Sunrise Realty Trust (NASDAQ:SUNS) and Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE:AHT) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Sunrise Realty Trust and Ashford Hospitality Trust, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Sunrise Realty Trust	0	0	2	1	3.33
Ashford Hospitality Trust	0	0	0	0	0.00

Sunrise Realty Trust currently has a consensus price target of $13.42, indicating a potential upside of 64.02%. Given Sunrise Realty Trust’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, research analysts plainly believe Sunrise Realty Trust is more favorable than Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Dividends

Sunrise Realty Trust pays an annual dividend of $1.20 per share and has a dividend yield of 14.7%. Ashford Hospitality Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Ashford Hospitality Trust pays out -0.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Sunrise Realty Trust and Ashford Hospitality Trust”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Sunrise Realty Trust	$10.63 million	10.33	$230,000.00	N/A	N/A
Ashford Hospitality Trust	$1.17 billion	0.03	-$178.49 million	($27.72)	-0.21

Sunrise Realty Trust has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Ashford Hospitality Trust.

Profitability

This table compares Sunrise Realty Trust and Ashford Hospitality Trust’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Sunrise Realty Trust	N/A	N/A	N/A
Ashford Hospitality Trust	2.84%	-12.89%	1.01%

Institutional & Insider Ownership

41.0% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are held by institutional investors. 5.7% of Sunrise Realty Trust shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 1.2% of Ashford Hospitality Trust shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Sunrise Realty Trust beats Ashford Hospitality Trust on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sunrise Realty Trust

Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. engages in commercial real estate (CRE) lending business. It focuses on originating CRE debt investments and providing capital to borrowers and sponsors with transitional business plans collateralized by CRE assets. The company intends to create a diversified investment portfolio, targeting investments in senior mortgage loans, mezzanine loans, whole loans, B-notes, CMBS, and debt-like preferred equity securities across CRE asset classes. Sunrise Realty Trust, Inc. was incorporated in 2023 and is based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

About Ashford Hospitality Trust

Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc., together with its subsidiaries (Ashford Trust), is a real estate investment trust (REIT). While our portfolio currently consists of upscale hotels and upper upscale full-service hotels, our investment strategy is predominantly focused on investing in upper upscale full-service hotels in the United States that have revenue per available room (RevPAR) generally less than twice the U.S. national average, and in all methods including direct real estate, equity, and debt. We currently anticipate future investments will predominantly be in upper upscale hotels. We own our lodging investments and conduct our business through Ashford Hospitality Limited Partnership (Ashford Trust OP), our operating partnership. Ashford OP General Partner LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashford Trust, serves as the sole general partner of our operating partnership.