Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Short Interest Up 7.2% in January

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,750,000 shares, a growth of 7.2% from the January 15th total of 4,430,000 shares. Approximately 11.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 551,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 8.6 days.

Institutional Trading of Granite Construction

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in Granite Construction during the fourth quarter worth $92,154,000. Hennessy Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in Granite Construction during the fourth quarter worth $61,046,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Granite Construction during the fourth quarter worth $31,855,000. First Trust Advisors LP boosted its stake in Granite Construction by 35.1% during the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,131,419 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $99,237,000 after buying an additional 294,200 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC boosted its stake in Granite Construction by 11.0% during the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 2,651,676 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $232,579,000 after buying an additional 263,302 shares during the last quarter.

Granite Construction Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:GVA traded up $0.69 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $87.56. The stock had a trading volume of 840,084 shares, compared to its average volume of 561,887. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.56. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $89.82 and a 200-day moving average price of $85.02. The stock has a market cap of $3.83 billion, a PE ratio of 40.17 and a beta of 1.42. Granite Construction has a 1-year low of $48.11 and a 1-year high of $105.20.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The construction company reported $1.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.42 by ($0.19). The firm had revenue of $977.30 million during the quarter. Granite Construction had a return on equity of 19.04% and a net margin of 2.80%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.82 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Granite Construction will post 4.98 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Granite Construction Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were paid a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.59%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 31st. Granite Construction’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.85%.

About Granite Construction

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.