Graco Inc. (NYSE:GGG) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Graco Inc. (NYSE:GGG) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the five brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $93.00.

GGG has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. BNP Paribas raised shares of Graco from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $105.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Graco from $93.00 to $97.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, DA Davidson set a $85.00 target price on shares of Graco in a report on Friday, January 31st.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Graco

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Wood Tarver Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Graco in the 4th quarter worth $46,000. Siemens Fonds Invest GmbH bought a new position in shares of Graco during the 4th quarter valued at $216,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new position in shares of Graco during the 4th quarter valued at $13,853,000. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Graco during the 4th quarter valued at $279,000. Finally, Ascent Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Graco by 6.3% during the 4th quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 18,540 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $1,563,000 after purchasing an additional 1,092 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 93.88% of the company’s stock.

Graco Stock Up 1.5 %

NYSE GGG opened at $83.96 on Monday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $84.87 and its 200-day moving average is $85.51. The firm has a market cap of $14.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.85 and a beta of 0.83. Graco has a 12-month low of $77.49 and a 12-month high of $94.77.

Graco (NYSE:GGG) last posted its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The industrial products company reported $0.64 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.77 by ($0.13). Graco had a return on equity of 19.38% and a net margin of 23.00%. Equities analysts expect that Graco will post 3.06 EPS for the current year.

Graco Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 7th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 14th will be issued a $0.275 dividend. This represents a $1.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.31%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 14th. Graco’s payout ratio is 39.01%.

Graco Company Profile

Graco Inc designs, manufactures, and markets systems and equipment used to move, measure, control, dispense, and spray fluid and powder materials worldwide. The Contractor segment offers sprayers to apply paint to walls and other structures; two-component proportioning systems that are used to spray polyurethane foam and polyurea coatings; and viscous coatings to roofs, as well as markings on roads, parking lots, athletic fields, and floors.