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

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

Institutional Trading of Granite Construction

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Granite Construction by 11.0% during the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 2,651,676 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $232,579,000 after buying an additional 263,302 shares in the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Granite Construction by 35.1% during the 4th quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 1,131,419 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $99,237,000 after buying an additional 294,200 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Granite Construction during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $92,154,000. Hill City Capital LP lifted its stake in shares of Granite Construction by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. Hill City Capital LP now owns 978,938 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $77,610,000 after buying an additional 48,440 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Granite Construction during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $61,046,000.

Granite Construction Stock Performance

GVA traded up $0.69 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $87.56. The company 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 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 12-month low of $48.11 and a 12-month high of $105.20. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $89.82 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $85.02.

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

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

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

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.