Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) Short Interest Down 15.0% in August

Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) saw a significant drop in short interest during the month of August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 6,020,000 shares, a drop of 15.0% from the August 15th total of 7,080,000 shares. Currently, 7.2% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,550,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.9 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on GTN shares. Benchmark cut their price objective on Gray Television from $13.00 to $11.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Gray Television from $6.00 to $4.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Finally, Guggenheim cut their price objective on Gray Television from $12.00 to $10.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $8.33.

Gray Television Stock Performance

NYSE:GTN traded down $0.09 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $4.90. 892,555 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,287,675. The stock has a market capitalization of $487.88 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -40.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.09 and a beta of 1.49. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $5.17 and its 200 day simple moving average is $5.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 1.63 and a current ratio of 1.63. Gray Television has a fifty-two week low of $4.15 and a fifty-two week high of $10.07.

Gray Television (NYSE:GTN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.10 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $826.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $840.33 million. Gray Television had a return on equity of 3.02% and a net margin of 1.84%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.10) earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Gray Television will post 4.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Gray Television Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.54%. Gray Television’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -266.67%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Gray Television

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Hudson Edge Investment Partners Inc. bought a new position in Gray Television during the 4th quarter worth $246,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Gray Television by 9.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,662,398 shares of the company’s stock worth $35,786,000 after acquiring an additional 506,106 shares during the period. CenterBook Partners LP bought a new position in Gray Television during the 4th quarter worth $3,671,000. CastleKnight Management LP bought a new position in Gray Television during the 4th quarter worth $1,591,000. Finally, Empowered Funds LLC bought a new position in Gray Television during the 1st quarter worth $2,010,000. Institutional investors own 78.64% of the company’s stock.

Gray Television Company 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.