Gray Television, Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.08 (NYSE:GTN)

Gray Television, Inc. (NYSE:GTN - Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 8th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 14th will be given a dividend of 0.08 per share on Friday, June 28th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 14th.

Gray Television has a payout ratio of -59.3% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect Gray Television to earn ($0.88) per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $0.32 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of -36.4%.

Gray Television Stock Down 3.9 %

Shares of GTN stock traded down $0.27 on Friday, hitting $6.86. The stock had a trading volume of 758,690 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,131,416. Gray Television has a 12-month low of $5.44 and a 12-month high of $10.69. The stock has a market cap of $666.33 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.15 and a beta of 1.55. The business has a 50 day moving average of $5.96 and a 200 day moving average of $7.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.12, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 1.18.

Gray Television (NYSE:GTN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 7th. The company reported $0.79 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.54 by $0.25. Gray Television had a negative net margin of 2.32% and a negative return on equity of 3.76%. The firm had revenue of $823.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $824.98 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted ($0.48) EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Gray Television will post 4.21 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on GTN. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Gray Television from $5.50 to $6.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Barrington Research restated a "market perform" rating on shares of Gray Television in a research report on Tuesday, February 27th. Finally, Benchmark lifted their price objective on shares of Gray Television from $11.00 to $13.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Gray Television has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $11.40.

Insider Transactions at Gray Television

In other news, CEO Hilton H. Howell, Jr. acquired 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 28th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $8.09 per share, for a total transaction of $80,900.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now owns 2,982,386 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $24,127,502.74. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 13.83% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Gray Television Company Profile

Gray Television, Inc, a television broadcasting company, owns and/or operates television stations and digital assets in the United States. It also broadcasts secondary digital channels affiliated to ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX, as well as various other networks and program services, including CW Plus Network, MY Network, the MeTV Network, Circle, Telemundo, THE365, and Outlaw; and local news/weather channels in various markets.