Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Sees Large Drop in Short Interest

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA - Get Free Report) saw a large decrease in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,240,000 shares, a decrease of 6.4% from the October 15th total of 4,530,000 shares. Currently, 9.8% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 636,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 6.7 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in GVA. Rothschild Investment LLC purchased a new position in Granite Construction during the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. Blue Trust Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Granite Construction by 66.4% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 902 shares of the construction company's stock valued at $72,000 after buying an additional 360 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Granite Construction in the 2nd quarter worth $107,000. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in Granite Construction by 82.5% during the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,007 shares of the construction company's stock valued at $159,000 after acquiring an additional 907 shares during the period. Finally, Point72 DIFC Ltd bought a new position in Granite Construction during the third quarter valued at approximately $203,000.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Granite Construction Stock Up 0.9 %

GVA traded up $0.82 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $96.43. 356,299 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 540,568. The company's fifty day moving average price is $83.08 and its 200 day moving average price is $71.40. The company has a market cap of $4.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.24 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.56. Granite Construction has a one year low of $43.92 and a one year high of $99.32.

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

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 30th were given a $0.13 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 30th. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.54%. Granite Construction's payout ratio is currently 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.