Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) Price Target Raised to $124.00

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) had its target price increased by The Goldman Sachs Group from $110.00 to $124.00 in a research note published on Monday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a sell rating on the construction company’s stock.

Several other brokerages also recently issued reports on GVA. Oppenheimer raised their price target on Granite Construction from $170.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, July 31st. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Granite Construction from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, July 18th. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Granite Construction from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have issued a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $159.75.

Granite Construction Price Performance

Shares of GVA opened at $132.44 on Monday. Granite Construction has a 52 week low of $97.26 and a 52 week high of $162.08. The company has a current ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18. The firm has a market cap of $5.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.73 and a beta of 1.41. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $116.29 and a 200-day moving average of $126.53.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 29th. The construction company reported $3.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.27 by $0.54. The business had revenue of $1.77 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. Granite Construction had a positive return on equity of 33.79% and a negative net margin of 4.99%. The business’s revenue was up 23.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.98 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Granite Construction will post 6.36 EPS for the current year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 15th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 30th were issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, September 30th. Granite Construction’s payout ratio is presently -8.36%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Granite Construction

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GVA. Hill City Capital LP purchased a new stake in Granite Construction in the 2nd quarter worth about $175,508,004. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its position in Granite Construction by 52.8% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,397,573 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $167,541,000 after acquiring an additional 483,080 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Granite Construction by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,067,545 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $127,969,000 after acquiring an additional 4,327 shares during the period. Squarepoint Ops LLC grew its stake in Granite Construction by 39.0% during the 2nd quarter. Squarepoint Ops LLC now owns 228,163 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $36,068,000 after acquiring an additional 64,007 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Granite Construction by 8.3% in the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 287,744 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $34,495,000 after purchasing an additional 22,162 shares during the period.

Granite Construction Company Profile

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) is an infrastructure construction company that provides engineering, construction and rehabilitation services for public and private-sector clients. The company’s work supports transportation, water and other essential infrastructure projects across the United States.

Granite’s transportation activities include the construction and maintenance of highways, roads, bridges, airports, rail systems and other transit facilities. Its water-related services include the development and improvement of water treatment and distribution systems, wastewater facilities, dams, pipelines and related infrastructure.