Readystate Asset Management LP Increases Stake in Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN)

Readystate Asset Management LP raised its holdings in shares of Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN) by 61.9% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 85,822 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 32,822 shares during the period. Readystate Asset Management LP’s holdings in Gray Television were worth $769,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Gray Television by 23.1% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,060,987 shares of the company’s stock valued at $14,262,000 after buying an additional 386,907 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Gray Television in the fourth quarter worth $964,000. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund purchased a new stake in shares of Gray Television in the third quarter worth $1,693,000. Darsana Capital Partners LP increased its stake in shares of Gray Television by 336.8% in the third quarter. Darsana Capital Partners LP now owns 4,000,441 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,683,000 after purchasing an additional 3,084,578 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swiss National Bank increased its stake in shares of Gray Television by 2.8% in the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 181,800 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,258,000 after purchasing an additional 4,900 shares in the last quarter. 78.64% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Gray Television

In other Gray Television news, CEO Hilton H. Howell, Jr. acquired 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 28th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $8.09 per share, with a total value of $80,900.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,982,386 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $24,127,502.74. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 4.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on GTN. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Gray Television from $6.00 to $7.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Barrington Research reissued a “market perform” rating on shares of Gray Television in a research note on Tuesday, February 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $12.80.

Gray Television Price Performance

GTN traded up $0.14 during trading on Thursday, hitting $5.79. 907,020 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,162,991. The company has a market cap of $562.79 million, a PE ratio of -4.17, a P/E/G ratio of 0.15 and a beta of 1.57. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $6.33 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $7.41. Gray Television, Inc. has a 1 year low of $5.44 and a 1 year high of $10.69. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.12.

Gray Television (NYSE:GTN) last posted its earnings results on Friday, February 23rd. The company reported ($0.24) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.16) by ($0.08). The company had revenue of $864.00 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $863.31 million. Gray Television had a negative net margin of 2.32% and a negative return on equity of 3.76%. The business’s revenue was down 19.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.88 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Gray Television, Inc. will post 3.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Gray Television Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.53%. Gray Television’s payout ratio is -23.02%.

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.