Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) Now Covered by The Goldman Sachs Group

The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) in a research note released on Monday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage issued a neutral rating and a $109.00 target price on the construction company’s stock.

GVA has been the topic of several other reports. Wall Street Zen cut Granite Construction from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Granite Construction in a research report on Monday, November 17th. DA Davidson increased their price objective on shares of Granite Construction from $125.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 11th. Finally, Zacks Research lowered shares of Granite Construction from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 12th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Granite Construction presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $119.50.

Granite Construction Stock Performance

Shares of Granite Construction stock opened at $104.71 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $4.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.22 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a quick ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.57 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. Granite Construction has a twelve month low of $69.08 and a twelve month high of $112.16. The company’s fifty day moving average is $105.31 and its 200 day moving average is $99.50.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The construction company reported $2.70 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.56 by $0.14. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.51 billion. Granite Construction had a return on equity of 21.64% and a net margin of 3.89%.The business’s quarterly revenue was up 12.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.05 EPS. Granite Construction has set its FY 2025 guidance at EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Granite Construction will post 5.49 EPS for the current year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 15th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 30th were paid a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, September 30th. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.5%. Granite Construction’s dividend payout ratio is currently 14.99%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Granite Construction news, Director Louis E. Caldera sold 1,500 shares of Granite Construction stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.16, for a total value of $165,240.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 10,601 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,167,806.16. The trade was a 12.40% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Brian R. Dowd sold 2,025 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.16, for a total transaction of $223,074.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 14,685 shares in the company, valued at $1,617,699.60. This represents a 12.12% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 11,139 shares of company stock worth $1,189,535. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Mizuho Markets Cayman LP increased its holdings in shares of Granite Construction by 569.9% during the third quarter. Mizuho Markets Cayman LP now owns 1,339,818 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $151,064,000 after acquiring an additional 1,139,818 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in Granite Construction in the 1st quarter valued at $21,966,000. Conversant Capital LLC bought a new stake in Granite Construction during the 1st quarter valued at $21,490,000. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Granite Construction during the 2nd quarter valued at $24,812,000. Finally, Qube Research & Technologies Ltd raised its holdings in Granite Construction by 87.5% during the third quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 556,054 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $60,971,000 after buying an additional 259,477 shares during the last quarter.

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.