Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) Price Target Raised to $50.00

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) had its price objective boosted by The Goldman Sachs Group from $44.00 to $50.00 in a report published on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a sell rating on the construction company’s stock.

Separately, DA Davidson upped their price target on shares of Granite Construction from $60.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 27th.

Granite Construction Stock Performance

GVA opened at $53.69 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $2.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 70.64 and a beta of 1.46. Granite Construction has a 1-year low of $33.74 and a 1-year high of $57.93. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $53.33 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $47.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 1.60 and a quick ratio of 1.49.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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 firm had revenue of $933.70 million during the quarter. Granite Construction had a return on equity of 14.15% and a net margin of 1.24%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.56 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Granite Construction will post 4.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 28th were given a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.97%. Granite Construction’s dividend payout ratio is 68.42%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Louis E. Caldera sold 1,263 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $63,150.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 8,528 shares in the company, valued at $426,400. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Granite Construction

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Granite Construction by 0.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,107,922 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $167,539,000 after purchasing an additional 44,497 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in Granite Construction by 58.4% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,764,283 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $70,544,000 after purchasing an additional 1,019,112 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in Granite Construction by 2.0% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,390,934 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $78,422,000 after purchasing an additional 47,937 shares in the last quarter. Frontier Capital Management Co. LLC raised its stake in Granite Construction by 21.6% during the fourth quarter. Frontier Capital Management Co. LLC now owns 1,388,044 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $70,596,000 after purchasing an additional 246,154 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its stake in Granite Construction by 4.4% during the third quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 989,161 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $37,608,000 after purchasing an additional 41,575 shares in the last quarter.

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.