Jennison Associates LLC Boosts Stock Position in Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN)

Jennison Associates LLC raised its position in shares of Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) by 5.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 95,871 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,639 shares during the quarter. Jennison Associates LLC’s holdings in Gray Television were worth $859,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of GTN. Darsana Capital Partners LP boosted its stake in shares of Gray Television by 336.8% in the third quarter. Darsana Capital Partners LP now owns 4,000,441 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,683,000 after buying an additional 3,084,578 shares during the last quarter. Capital Management Corp VA boosted its stake in shares of Gray Television by 27.2% in the fourth quarter. Capital Management Corp VA now owns 3,094,883 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,730,000 after buying an additional 661,760 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Gray Television by 23.1% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,060,987 shares of the company’s stock worth $14,262,000 after buying an additional 386,907 shares during the last quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Gray Television by 96.4% in the third quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 729,072 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,045,000 after buying an additional 357,833 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund purchased a new stake in shares of Gray Television in the third quarter worth about $1,693,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 78.64% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Gray Television

In other news, CEO Hilton H. Howell, Jr. bought 10,000 shares of Gray Television stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 28th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $8.09 per share, with a total value of $80,900.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,982,386 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,127,502.74. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders own 4.80% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently commented on GTN. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Gray Television from $6.00 to $7.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Barrington Research restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Gray Television in a research note on Tuesday, February 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Gray Television presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $12.80.

Gray Television Stock Performance

Shares of GTN stock opened at $5.61 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $545.29 million, a P/E ratio of -4.04, a P/E/G ratio of 0.15 and a beta of 1.57. The business’s 50 day moving average is $6.04 and its two-hundred day moving average is $7.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.12. Gray Television, Inc. has a 12-month low of $5.44 and a 12-month high of $10.69.

Gray Television (NYSE:GTN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 23rd. The company reported ($0.24) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.16) by ($0.08). The business had revenue of $864.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $863.31 million. Gray Television had a negative return on equity of 3.76% and a negative net margin of 2.32%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 19.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.88 EPS. Analysts expect that Gray Television, Inc. will post 3.78 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Gray Television Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were issued a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.70%. Gray Television’s payout ratio is currently -23.02%.

Gray Television Profile

Gray Television, Inc, a television broadcasting company, owns and/or operates television stations and digital assets in the United States. It also broadcasts secondary digital channels affiliated to ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, as well as various other networks and program services, including CW Plus Network, MY Network, the MeTV Network, Circle, Telemundo, THE365, and Outlaw; and local news/weather channels in various markets.