Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Short Interest Update

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) saw a large increase in short interest in April. As of April 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,390,000 shares, an increase of 5.5% from the March 31st total of 4,160,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 356,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 12.3 days. Approximately 10.1% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on GVA shares. DA Davidson boosted their target price on Granite Construction from $60.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Granite Construction from $44.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 16th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Louis E. Caldera sold 1,263 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $63,150.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 8,528 shares in the company, valued at $426,400. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Granite Construction

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Granite Construction by 2.3% during the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 8,379 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $426,000 after buying an additional 187 shares in the last quarter. 1492 Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Granite Construction by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. 1492 Capital Management LLC now owns 41,068 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $2,089,000 after buying an additional 275 shares in the last quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Granite Construction by 35.1% in the fourth quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp now owns 2,500 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $127,000 after purchasing an additional 650 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Granite Construction in the third quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Granite Construction in the fourth quarter valued at about $43,000.

Granite Construction Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of GVA stock opened at $54.99 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 72.36 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a current ratio of 1.60, a quick ratio of 1.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. The business’s 50 day moving average is $54.32 and its two-hundred day moving average is $48.84. Granite Construction has a twelve month low of $33.74 and a twelve month high of $57.93.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 22nd. The construction company reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.84 by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $933.70 million during the quarter. Granite Construction had a net margin of 1.24% and a return on equity of 14.15%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Granite Construction will post 4.29 EPS for the current year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 28th were issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 27th. Granite Construction’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.42%.

Granite Construction Company Profile

Granite Construction Incorporated operates as an infrastructure contractor in the United States. It operates through two segments: Construction and Materials segments. The Construction segment engages in the construction and rehabilitation of roads, pavement preservation, bridges, rail lines, airports, marine ports, dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, infrastructure, and site development for use by the public and water-related construction for municipal agencies, commercial water suppliers, industrial facilities, and energy companies; and construction of various complex projects, including infrastructure/site development, mining, public safety, tunnel, solar storage, and power related projects.