Gray Television (NYSE:GTN) Issues Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.25 EPS

Gray Television (NYSE:GTN) released its earnings results on Tuesday. The company reported $0.79 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.25, Briefing.com reports. The business had revenue of $823.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $824.98 million. Gray Television had a negative net margin of 2.32% and a negative return on equity of 3.76%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned ($0.48) earnings per share.

Gray Television Trading Up 2.1 %

Shares of Gray Television stock traded up $0.14 on Thursday, hitting $6.88. 335,107 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,122,870. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.12, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 1.18. Gray Television has a one year low of $5.44 and a one year high of $10.69. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $5.94 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $7.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $668.76 million, a PE ratio of -5.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.15 and a beta of 1.55.

Gray Television Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were given a dividend of $0.08 per share. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.65%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. Gray Television’s payout ratio is -23.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Hilton H. Howell, Jr. bought 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 28th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $8.09 per share, for a total transaction of $80,900.00. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 2,982,386 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $24,127,502.74. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 13.83% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Gray Television from $5.50 to $6.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Benchmark increased their target price on shares of Gray Television from $11.00 to $13.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Barrington Research reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Gray Television in a research report on Tuesday, February 27th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $11.40.

About Gray Television

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.