Meritage Homes Co. (NYSE:MTH) Receives $213.83 Consensus PT from Analysts

Meritage Homes Co. (NYSE:MTH) has been given an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the eight research firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $218.17.

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on MTH shares. Wedbush raised shares of Meritage Homes from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $160.00 to $195.00 in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on Meritage Homes from $219.00 to $221.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, July 15th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their price target on Meritage Homes from $210.00 to $198.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Meritage Homes from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $205.00 to $235.00 in a research 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.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Meritage Homes

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. increased its stake in shares of Meritage Homes by 10.6% during the first quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 95,218 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $16,707,000 after purchasing an additional 9,128 shares in the last quarter. Comerica Bank raised its holdings in shares of Meritage Homes by 5.9% during the first quarter. Comerica Bank now owns 79,358 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $13,924,000 after acquiring an additional 4,435 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management lifted its position in shares of Meritage Homes by 3.3% in the first quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 216,400 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $37,970,000 after acquiring an additional 7,000 shares in the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Meritage Homes by 204.5% in the second quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 13,378 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $2,165,000 after acquiring an additional 8,985 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in shares of Meritage Homes during the first quarter worth approximately $25,495,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.44% of the company’s stock.

Meritage Homes Trading Down 2.2 %

NYSE MTH opened at $186.62 on Thursday. Meritage Homes has a 12-month low of $129.42 and a 12-month high of $213.98. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $195.31 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $183.02. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26. The stock has a market cap of $6.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.64 and a beta of 1.82.

Meritage Homes (NYSE:MTH) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The construction company reported $5.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $5.05 by $0.29. The company had revenue of $1.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.58 billion. Meritage Homes had a return on equity of 16.89% and a net margin of 12.63%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $5.98 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Meritage Homes will post 21.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Meritage Homes Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, September 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, September 16th were given a dividend of $0.75 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 16th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.61%. Meritage Homes’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 13.58%.

About Meritage Homes

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.