Wedbush Securities Inc. Purchases New Stake in Gerdau S.A. (NYSE:GGB)

Wedbush Securities Inc. purchased a new stake in Gerdau S.A. (NYSE:GGB) in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 11,654 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $38,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in GGB. Insight 2811 Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Gerdau in the second quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Ballentine Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Gerdau during the first quarter worth $44,000. Prosperity Consulting Group LLC acquired a new stake in Gerdau during the first quarter worth $53,000. KCM Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Gerdau during the first quarter worth $54,000. Finally, IPG Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Gerdau during the fourth quarter worth $55,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 1.49% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Bank of America raised Gerdau from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $4.50 to $5.00 in a research note on Friday, May 24th.

Gerdau Price Performance

GGB stock opened at $3.37 on Monday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $3.25 and a two-hundred day moving average of $3.40. The company has a quick ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 2.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. The stock has a market cap of $7.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.52 and a beta of 1.74. Gerdau S.A. has a 52-week low of $2.92 and a 52-week high of $4.41.

Gerdau (NYSE:GGB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The basic materials company reported $0.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.02. Gerdau had a return on equity of 8.43% and a net margin of 7.88%. The business had revenue of $3.19 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.01 billion. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Gerdau S.A. will post 0.53 earnings per share for the current year.

Gerdau Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 27th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 13th were given a dividend of $0.055 per share. This is a positive change from Gerdau’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.06. This represents a $0.22 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 13th. Gerdau’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 13.11%.

About Gerdau

Gerdau SA, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a steel producer company. The company operates through Brazil Business, North America Business, South America Business, and Special Steel Business segments. It also provides semi-finished products, including billets, blooms, and slabs; common long rolled products, such as rebars, wire rods, merchant bars, light shapes, and profiles to the construction and manufacturing industries; drawn products comprising barbed and barbless fence wires, galvanized wires, fences, concrete reinforcing wire mesh, nails, and clamps for manufacturing, construction, and agricultural industries; and special steel products used in auto parts, light and heavy vehicles, and agricultural machinery, as well as in the oil and gas, wind energy, machinery and equipment, mining and rail, and other markets.