Gerdau S.A. (NYSE:GGB) Short Interest Update

Gerdau S.A. (NYSE:GGB) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest during the month of June. As of June 15th, there was short interest totalling 7,420,000 shares, a growth of 366.7% from the May 31st total of 1,590,000 shares. Approximately 0.5% of the company’s stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 9,280,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.8 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GGB has been the topic of a number of research reports. Bank of America upgraded Gerdau from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $4.50 to $5.00 in a report on Friday, May 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Gerdau from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the company from $4.17 to $5.00 in a report on Monday, April 15th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Gerdau

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Gerdau by 97.2% in the 1st quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 17,905 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $79,000 after acquiring an additional 8,826 shares in the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC lifted its stake in Gerdau by 463.6% in the 1st quarter. Virtu Financial LLC now owns 190,794 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $843,000 after acquiring an additional 156,941 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Sarl lifted its stake in Gerdau by 2.8% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Sarl now owns 1,258,305 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $5,562,000 after acquiring an additional 34,487 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Ltd. CA raised its stake in shares of Gerdau by 2.2% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Ltd. CA now owns 1,092,660 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $4,830,000 after purchasing an additional 23,727 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its stake in shares of Gerdau by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 92,086,997 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $407,025,000 after purchasing an additional 378,125 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 1.49% of the company’s stock.

Gerdau Stock Performance

Shares of Gerdau stock opened at $3.30 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $6.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.42 and a beta of 1.77. Gerdau has a 1 year low of $3.06 and a 1 year high of $5.13. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $3.41 and its 200-day simple moving average is $3.58. The company has a current ratio of 2.79, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Gerdau (NYSE:GGB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 3rd. The basic materials company reported $0.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.09 by $0.03. Gerdau had a return on equity of 11.04% and a net margin of 9.57%. The business had revenue of $3.27 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.22 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Gerdau will post 0.58 EPS for the current year.

Gerdau Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 4th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 20th were issued a dividend of $0.055 per share. This represents a $0.22 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.67%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, May 17th. This is a boost from Gerdau’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.02. Gerdau’s payout ratio is 36.16%.

Gerdau Company Profile

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.