Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Acquires Shares of 22,338 Meritage Homes Corporation $MTH

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought a new position in Meritage Homes Corporation (NYSE:MTH) in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 22,338 shares of the construction company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,873,000.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in Meritage Homes by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,901,851 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $190,943,000 after purchasing an additional 16,338 shares during the period. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of Meritage Homes by 58.9% in the second quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,423,013 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $95,299,000 after purchasing an additional 527,265 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Meritage Homes by 58.6% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,058,850 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $75,051,000 after buying an additional 391,297 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Meritage Homes during the fourth quarter valued at $63,053,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its position in Meritage Homes by 7.7% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 855,679 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $56,304,000 after buying an additional 61,342 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.44% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Weiss Ratings raised Meritage Homes from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $93.00 target price (up from $82.00) on shares of Meritage Homes in a report on Friday, July 10th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $88.00 price target (up from $86.00) on shares of Meritage Homes in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Zelman & Associates cut shares of Meritage Homes from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating on shares of Meritage Homes in a research report on Monday, July 6th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and seven have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $79.25.

Meritage Homes Stock Up 0.0%

Meritage Homes stock opened at $71.07 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.97, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The company has a market capitalization of $4.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.87, a P/E/G ratio of 5.20 and a beta of 1.36. Meritage Homes Corporation has a 1-year low of $58.03 and a 1-year high of $85.38. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $74.89 and its 200-day simple moving average is $70.31.

Meritage Homes (NYSE:MTH) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The construction company reported $1.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.30 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $1.41 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.43 billion. Meritage Homes had a return on equity of 7.13% and a net margin of 6.11%.The business’s quarterly revenue was down 14.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.04 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Meritage Homes Corporation will post 5.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Meritage Homes Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, September 30th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 15th will be given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 15th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.7%. Meritage Homes’s dividend payout ratio is presently 40.17%.

Meritage Homes Company Profile

Meritage Homes Corporation is a national homebuilder and residential developer headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. Founded in 1985 as Winchester Homes and later rebranded to Meritage Homes, the company specializes in designing, constructing and selling single?family detached and attached homes. With a focus on energy efficiency and sustainable building practices, Meritage Homes markets its properties under the GreenSmart program, which integrates high?performance features aimed at reducing long?term energy and water consumption for homebuyers.

The company’s core activities encompass land acquisition, residential community planning, home design, construction management and real estate sales.