Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Short Interest Up 5.4% in July

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) saw a significant increase in short interest in July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totalling 6,200,000 shares, an increase of 5.4% from the July 15th total of 5,880,000 shares. Approximately 14.3% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 671,300 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 9.2 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on Granite Construction from $55.00 to $61.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, SVP Michael G. Tatusko sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.22, for a total value of $346,100.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 21,943 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,518,894.46. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.81% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Granite Construction

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Granite Construction in the 4th quarter valued at about $290,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in Granite Construction during the fourth quarter worth approximately $556,000. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System acquired a new position in Granite Construction during the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,119,000. GAMMA Investing LLC acquired a new position in Granite Construction during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $43,000. Finally, Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its stake in Granite Construction by 5.5% during the fourth quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 101,133 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $5,144,000 after buying an additional 5,265 shares during the period.

Granite Construction Price Performance

GVA stock traded up $0.87 during trading on Friday, hitting $70.99. The stock had a trading volume of 431,599 shares, compared to its average volume of 501,516. The stock has a market cap of $3.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 120.32 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.68. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $64.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $58.54. Granite Construction has a 1-year low of $33.74 and a 1-year high of $73.01.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The construction company reported $1.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.32 by $0.41. Granite Construction had a net margin of 2.35% and a return on equity of 17.82%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.03 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 20.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Granite Construction will post 4.76 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, July 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 28th were paid a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 28th. Granite Construction’s dividend payout ratio is presently 88.14%.

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.