Growing Through Challenges? – Granite Construction Incorporated (GVA)

Fuller & Thaler Asset Management, recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 1.90% to 2.76 million shares with purchase of 51508.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 6.32% valued currently at $96.94 million. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 1.02 million to 2.76 million shares. And Dimensional Fund Advisors LP has lifted its position by 3.50% or 89772.0 shares – to 2.65 million shares.

With over 0.48 million Granite Construction Incorporated (GVA) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $39.10 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $18.7 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 36.00% and its price on 01/13/23 gained nearly 4.13%. Currently, there are 43.97M common shares owned by the public and among those 43.45M shares have been available to trade.

An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 4 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for GVA have a consensus price objective of $44.80. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $50.00 and a low of $32.00. The average price target is 12.72% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -22.19% over that period. But an upside of 21.8% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $47.00.

Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 41 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 18 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 82,736 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 23 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 22,026 shares.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in Granite Construction Incorporated are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Undiscovered Managers Behavioral, and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 3.23 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $113.26 million. The company sold 8014.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 7.39% of the shares outstanding. Undiscovered Managers Behavioral bought 46900.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 2.26 million shares valued at over $79.1 million and representing 5.16% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 2423.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.37 million shares at a value of $48.0 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index now owns shares totaling to 3.13% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE: GVA) opened at $37.68, up $0.13 from a prior closing price of $37.55. However, the script later moved the day high at 39.20, up 4.13%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 10.20% and 40.50% over the past three months. GVA shares are trading 11.49% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 5.68% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $25.35 and touched a high of $38.44 over the same period. GVA has an average intraday trading volume of 254.82K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 10.35%, 11.25%, and 24.96% respectively.

Institutional ownership of Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE: GVA) 43.97M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 37.86%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 63.13% and 2.68% respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $1.64B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.40. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 57.67, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $0.68. The company has a PEG of 8.24 and a Quick Ratio of 1.40 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.30. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.87% over the week and 2.18% over the month.

Analysts forecast that Granite Construction Incorporated (GVA) will achieve an EPS of $0.46 for the current quarter, -$0.1 for the next quarter and $2.54 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.37 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.58. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.29 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -103.00%, and 51.98% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 7.00% over the next five years, compared to -15.00% over the past 5-year period.

If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 4 brokerage firm advisors rate Granite Construction Incorporated (GVA) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.20. Specifically, 3 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 4 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”

Looking at the support for the GVA, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. DA Davidson stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on April 15, 2021, with the firm’s price target at $35-$55. Goldman coverage for the Granite Construction Incorporated (GVA) stock in a research note released on January 13, 2020 offered a Sell rating with a price target of $26. DA Davidson was of a view on October 28, 2019 that the stock is Neutral, while Goldman gave the stock Neutral rating on August 08, 2019, issuing a price target of $50- $31. B. Riley FBR on their part issued Neutral rating on July 30, 2019.