Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Short Interest Up 7.2% in January

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) was the target of a large growth in short interest in January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,750,000 shares, a growth of 7.2% from the January 15th total of 4,430,000 shares. Currently, 11.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 551,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 8.6 days.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Granite Construction

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. HighTower Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Granite Construction by 176.4% in the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 15,092 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $1,199,000 after buying an additional 9,631 shares during the last quarter. Fiduciary Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Granite Construction in the 4th quarter worth $545,000. Pacer Advisors Inc. bought a new position in shares of Granite Construction in the 4th quarter worth $92,154,000. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of Granite Construction in the 3rd quarter worth $4,163,000. Finally, Intech Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Granite Construction in the 3rd quarter worth $1,312,000.

Granite Construction Price Performance

NYSE GVA traded up $0.69 on Tuesday, hitting $87.56. The stock had a trading volume of 840,084 shares, compared to its average volume of 561,887. Granite Construction has a 52-week low of $48.11 and a 52-week high of $105.20. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a current ratio of 1.56. The company has a market capitalization of $3.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.17 and a beta of 1.42. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $89.82 and a 200-day moving average of $85.02.

Granite Construction (NYSE:GVA) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The construction company reported $1.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.42 by ($0.19). Granite Construction had a return on equity of 19.04% and a net margin of 2.80%. The firm had revenue of $977.30 million during the quarter. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.82 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Granite Construction will post 4.98 EPS for the current year.

Granite Construction Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were issued a $0.13 dividend. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 31st. Granite Construction’s payout ratio is 23.85%.

Granite Construction Company 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.