Digital Realty Trust is a real estate investment trust focusing on cloud and carrier-neutral interconnected data centers, with a market cap of $41 billion. It also develops data center platforms for businesses involved in cloud software, financial services, social media, and mobile services. Digital Realty helps customers develop secure networks and cloud-neutral data center platforms, and is at the forefront of the secular transition from on-premises data centers to cloud colocation centers. It continues to expand through M&A, joint ventures, and new development projects, while also recycling capital through asset sales. DLR is based in Austin, Texas, and operates over 300 data centers in 27 countries and over 50 global metropolitan markets. About 60% of annual rents are from data centers greater than 1 megawatt and about one-fourth of revenue is from tenant reimbursements for expenses and utilities. The company must manage foreign exchange issues as only about half of revenues are in U.S. dollars. Recent acquisitions have included data center companies in Europe and Africa. The shares are a component of the S&P 500.

U.S. markets rallied on Thursday morning on stellar Nvidia results. On the housing front, existing home sales rose 3.1% to an annual rate of 4 million, this up from 3.8 million in December. The median home sales price was $379,100, 5.1% higher than a year ago, but down from $381,400 in December. As for economic trends, S&P Global's flash readings for February's PMI show expansion in both services and manufacturing. Services activity slowed to 51.3, down from 52.5 in January, but remained in expansion territory. Manufacturing PMI expanded more quickly in February with a reading of 51.7, up from 50.7 in January. The tech heavy Nasdaq rose 2.6%, the S&P 500 was up $1.8% and the Dow gained 0.8%

Digital Realty owns and operates over 300 data centers worldwide. It has nearly 40 million rentable square feet across five continents. Digital's offerings range from retail co-location, where an enterprise may rent a single cabinet and rely on Digital to provide all the accommodations, to "cold shells," where hyperscale cloud service providers can simply rent much, or all, of a barren, power-connected building. In recent years, Digital Realty has de-emphasized cold shells and now primarily provides higher-level service to tenants, which outsource their related IT needs to Digital. The company operates as a real estate investment trust.

Sustainable Impact Investing, or ESG investing, is gaining traction not only with Argus Research clients but also with the global investment community. BlackRock CEO Lawrence Fink, who oversees approximately $9 trillion in assets, announced in January 2020 that his firm would be investing in companies that are making progress on sustainability. He doubled down in his January 2021 letter, calling on company managements to disclose their plans for making their businesses "compatible with a net-zero economy" by 2050. As assets have flowed in over the past 40 years, Sustainable Impact Investing has evolved. The discipline, originally known as Socially Responsible Investing, focused at first on excluding companies that conducted business in South Africa, or participated in industries such as tobacco, alcohol, and firearms. Performance of these initial strategies lagged, and the approach has been modified. Now, instead of merely identifying industries to avoid, the discipline promotes "sustainable" business practices across all industries that can have an "impact" on global issues such as climate, hunger, poverty, disease, shelter, and workers' rights.