Simon Quick Advisors LLC Has $2.46 Million Stock Position in Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE:MLM)

Simon Quick Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE:MLM) by 3.6% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 4,753 shares of the construction company’s stock after buying an additional 163 shares during the period. Simon Quick Advisors LLC’s holdings in Martin Marietta Materials were worth $2,455,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in MLM. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Martin Marietta Materials by 76.2% in the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,628,701 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $876,648,000 after purchasing an additional 704,460 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 23.3% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,678,425 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $1,441,663,000 after buying an additional 506,705 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 15.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,515,441 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $1,353,936,000 after acquiring an additional 334,605 shares in the last quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board increased its holdings in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 7,608.2% during the 3rd quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 181,373 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $97,624,000 after acquiring an additional 179,020 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 54.2% in the 3rd quarter. Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. now owns 467,782 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $251,784,000 after acquiring an additional 164,503 shares in the last quarter. 95.04% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have commented on the company. UBS Group assumed coverage on Martin Marietta Materials in a report on Thursday, November 7th. They set a “buy” rating and a $730.00 price target on the stock. Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Martin Marietta Materials from $701.00 to $600.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 6th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Martin Marietta Materials from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $563.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. BNP Paribas lowered Martin Marietta Materials from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Martin Marietta Materials from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Martin Marietta Materials presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $648.71.

Martin Marietta Materials Price Performance

NYSE:MLM opened at $552.43 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 1.24 and a current ratio of 2.34. The company has a 50-day moving average of $554.49 and a 200-day moving average of $551.16. Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. has a 52 week low of $490.05 and a 52 week high of $633.23. The company has a market capitalization of $33.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.21, a PEG ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 0.91.

Martin Marietta Materials (NYSE:MLM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The construction company reported $5.91 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.41 by ($0.50). Martin Marietta Materials had a return on equity of 12.53% and a net margin of 30.47%. The business had revenue of $1.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.94 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $6.94 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. will post 17.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Martin Marietta Materials Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were given a $0.79 dividend. This represents a $3.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.57%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 2nd. Martin Marietta Materials’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.85%.

About Martin Marietta Materials

Martin Marietta Materials, Inc, a natural resource-based building materials company, supplies aggregates and heavy-side building materials to the construction industry in the United States and internationally. It offers crushed stone, sand, and gravel products; ready mixed concrete and asphalt; paving products and services; and Portland and specialty cement for use in the infrastructure projects, and nonresidential and residential construction markets, as well as in the railroad, agricultural, utility, and environmental industries.