Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) Sets New 12-Month High – Here’s Why

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA)’s share price hit a new 52-week high on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $104.71 and last traded at $104.34, with a volume of 5247 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $100.20.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Granite Construction from $61.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th.

Granite Construction Stock Performance

The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $89.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $75.14. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.29 billion, a PE ratio of 45.05 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a quick ratio of 1.46, a current ratio of 1.56 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The construction company reported $2.05 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.51 by ($0.46). Granite Construction had a return on equity of 19.04% and a net margin of 2.80%. The firm had revenue of $1.28 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.29 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.69 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 14.2% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Granite Construction Incorporated will post 4.98 earnings per share for the current year.

Granite Construction Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th were given a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 30th. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.53%. Granite Construction’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.85%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of GVA. Millennium Management LLC boosted its holdings in Granite Construction by 99.3% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 2,569,319 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $159,221,000 after purchasing an additional 1,280,288 shares during the period. Hood River Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Granite Construction in the second quarter valued at $29,143,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Granite Construction by 86.4% in the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 363,816 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $28,843,000 after purchasing an additional 168,673 shares during the period. Brightline Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Granite Construction in the third quarter valued at $11,971,000. Finally, Highbridge Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Granite Construction in the second quarter valued at $4,513,000.

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.