State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D Sells 545 Shares of Meritage Homes Co. (NYSE:MTH)

State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D lowered its holdings in Meritage Homes Co. (NYSE:MTH) by 3.8% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 13,743 shares of the construction company’s stock after selling 545 shares during the quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D’s holdings in Meritage Homes were worth $2,818,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. CWM LLC grew its holdings in shares of Meritage Homes by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 433 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $89,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares in the last quarter. Assetmark Inc. grew its stake in Meritage Homes by 53.6% during the third quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 172 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. Xponance Inc. increased its holdings in Meritage Homes by 2.9% in the 2nd quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 2,288 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $370,000 after buying an additional 64 shares during the period. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. raised its position in shares of Meritage Homes by 2.5% in the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 2,719 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $558,000 after buying an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AlphaMark Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Meritage Homes by 5.4% during the 2nd quarter. AlphaMark Advisors LLC now owns 1,842 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $298,000 after acquiring an additional 94 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.44% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MTH has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Wedbush raised shares of Meritage Homes from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $160.00 to $195.00 in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their price objective on Meritage Homes from $210.00 to $198.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Wolfe Research upgraded Meritage Homes from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $230.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 14th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Meritage Homes from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $205.00 to $235.00 in a report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Meritage Homes from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $218.17.

Meritage Homes Stock Performance

Meritage Homes stock opened at $177.85 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $194.14 and a 200-day moving average of $183.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 1.75 and a quick ratio of 1.75. Meritage Homes Co. has a 1 year low of $137.70 and a 1 year high of $213.98. The company has a market capitalization of $6.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.05 and a beta of 1.82.

Meritage Homes (NYSE:MTH) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The construction company reported $5.34 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.05 by $0.29. The company had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.58 billion. Meritage Homes had a net margin of 12.63% and a return on equity of 16.89%. Meritage Homes’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $5.98 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Meritage Homes Co. will post 21.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Meritage Homes Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Investors of record on Monday, September 16th were paid a $0.75 dividend. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 16th. Meritage Homes’s dividend payout ratio is currently 13.58%.

Meritage Homes Company Profile

Meritage Homes Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs and builds single-family attached and detached homes in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Homebuilding and Financial Services. It acquires and develops land; and constructs, markets, and sells homes for entry-level and first move-up buyers in Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.