Griffon Co. (NYSE:GFF) Sees Large Drop in Short Interest

Griffon Co. (NYSE:GFF) saw a significant decrease in short interest in the month of February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 1,890,000 shares, a decrease of 14.1% from the February 13th total of 2,200,000 shares. Approximately 4.8% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 363,600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 5.2 days.

Insider Activity

In other Griffon news, Director Cheryl L. Turnbull sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.80, for a total transaction of $242,400.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 30,730 shares in the company, valued at $2,482,984. This represents a 8.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 10.20% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Griffon

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Griffon by 33.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 76,213 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $5,335,000 after buying an additional 19,291 shares in the last quarter. Arcadia Investment Management Corp MI boosted its stake in Griffon by 35.1% in the fourth quarter. Arcadia Investment Management Corp MI now owns 23,551 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $1,678,000 after buying an additional 6,125 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Griffon by 4.1% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,555,908 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $108,914,000 after buying an additional 61,210 shares in the last quarter. Jane Street Group LLC boosted its stake in Griffon by 21.4% in the third quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 348,907 shares of the conglomerate’s stock worth $24,423,000 after buying an additional 61,399 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Griffon by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 538,200 shares of the conglomerate’s stock valued at $38,358,000 after purchasing an additional 18,274 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.22% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GFF has been the subject of a number of research reports. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Griffon from $92.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. Loop Capital upgraded shares of Griffon to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 14th. Stephens raised their price target on shares of Griffon from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 6th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Griffon from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Finally, Raymond James reissued a “strong-buy” rating and issued a $95.00 price target (up previously from $92.00) on shares of Griffon in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Griffon presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $98.75.

Griffon Price Performance

Shares of GFF traded down $0.22 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $71.64. 96,490 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 396,162. Griffon has a one year low of $55.01 and a one year high of $86.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.44, a current ratio of 2.51 and a quick ratio of 1.34. The firm has a market cap of $3.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.60 and a beta of 1.40. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $74.27 and a 200-day moving average of $72.31.

Griffon (NYSE:GFF) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 5th. The conglomerate reported $1.39 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.28 by $0.11. Griffon had a return on equity of 120.61% and a net margin of 9.13%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Griffon will post 5.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Griffon Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were paid a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.01%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 25th. Griffon’s dividend payout ratio is currently 14.69%.

About Griffon

Griffon Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides consumer and professional, and home and building products in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, and internationally. The company operates through two segments: Home and Building Products, and Consumer and Professional Products. The Home and Building Products segment manufactures and markets residential and commercial sectional garage doors, rolling steel service doors, fire doors, shutters, steel security grilles, and room dividers for the use in commercial construction and repair, and home remodeling applications.