Short Interest in Getty Realty Corp. (NYSE:GTY) Grows By 31.4%

Getty Realty Corp. (NYSE:GTY) saw a large growth in short interest in the month of August. As of August 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,060,000 shares, a growth of 31.4% from the July 31st total of 3,090,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 357,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 11.4 days.

Getty Realty Price Performance

Shares of GTY traded up $0.20 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $31.78. 210,126 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 286,221. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $29.59 and a 200-day moving average of $27.99. Getty Realty has a 52 week low of $25.70 and a 52 week high of $32.33. The stock has a market cap of $1.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.16 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 3.22 and a current ratio of 3.22.

Getty Realty (NYSE:GTY) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 24th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.30 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.57 by ($0.27). Getty Realty had a net margin of 33.49% and a return on equity of 6.98%. The company had revenue of $49.94 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $48.51 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.56 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Getty Realty will post 2.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Getty Realty Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 10th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 26th will be issued a $0.45 dividend. This represents a $1.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.66%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 26th. Getty Realty’s payout ratio is 153.85%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, JMP Securities increased their price objective on shares of Getty Realty from $31.50 to $33.00 and gave the company a “market outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 25th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its holdings in shares of Getty Realty by 10.4% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 361,951 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $10,576,000 after acquiring an additional 34,022 shares during the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Getty Realty by 17.9% in the 1st quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 151,406 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $4,141,000 after acquiring an additional 23,004 shares during the last quarter. Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Getty Realty in the 4th quarter worth about $8,328,000. ProShare Advisors LLC raised its position in Getty Realty by 11.7% in the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 289,385 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $7,915,000 after purchasing an additional 30,393 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Getty Realty by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 7,516,139 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $219,622,000 after purchasing an additional 220,049 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 85.11% of the company’s stock.

About Getty Realty