Arizona State Retirement System Increases Position in Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA)

Arizona State Retirement System lifted its position in shares of Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) by 1.9% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 12,309 shares of the construction company’s stock after buying an additional 235 shares during the quarter. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Granite Construction were worth $763,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of GVA. Hennessy Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Granite Construction by 44.0% in the first quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. now owns 108,000 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $6,170,000 after acquiring an additional 33,000 shares during the period. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Granite Construction in the first quarter worth $607,000. Wasatch Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Granite Construction by 637.4% during the first quarter. Wasatch Advisors LP now owns 936,858 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $53,523,000 after acquiring an additional 809,803 shares during the last quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC grew its stake in Granite Construction by 926.5% during the fourth quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC now owns 61,239 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $3,115,000 after acquiring an additional 55,273 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Comerica Bank increased its holdings in Granite Construction by 177.6% in the 1st quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 113,514 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $6,485,000 after acquiring an additional 72,621 shares during the last quarter.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Granite Construction news, SVP Michael G. Tatusko sold 5,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.22, for a total value of $346,100.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 21,943 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,518,894.46. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.81% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on Granite Construction from $55.00 to $61.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd.

Granite Construction Stock Performance

NYSE GVA opened at $76.37 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $3.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 129.44 and a beta of 1.39. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $69.19 and its 200-day moving average price is $61.93. Granite Construction Incorporated has a fifty-two week low of $33.74 and a fifty-two week high of $76.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 1.56 and a current ratio of 1.68.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The construction company reported $1.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.32 by $0.41. Granite Construction had a return on equity of 17.82% and a net margin of 2.35%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.03 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Granite Construction Incorporated will post 5.24 earnings per share for the current year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be issued a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 30th. Granite Construction’s payout ratio is presently 88.14%.

Granite Construction 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.