Meritage Homes (NYSE:MTH) Updates FY24 Earnings Guidance

Meritage Homes (NYSE:MTH) updated its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $19.20-20.70 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $17.84. The company issued revenue guidance of $6.0-6.2 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $6.07 billion. Meritage Homes also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 19.200-20.700 EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on MTH shares. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on Meritage Homes from $151.00 to $182.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Seaport Res Ptn lowered Meritage Homes from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. Wedbush reaffirmed an underperform rating and issued a $148.00 price objective on shares of Meritage Homes in a research note on Thursday. Zelman & Associates raised Meritage Homes from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, February 26th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Meritage Homes from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Friday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $172.67.

Meritage Homes Stock Up 2.7 %

Meritage Homes stock traded up $4.41 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $169.48. 593,929 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 339,394. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $159.56 and its 200-day moving average price is $152.95. The company has a market cap of $6.16 billion, a PE ratio of 7.90 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 1.90 and a quick ratio of 1.77. Meritage Homes has a fifty-two week low of $109.23 and a fifty-two week high of $179.68.

Meritage Homes (NYSE:MTH) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, April 24th. The construction company reported $5.06 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.54 by $1.52. Meritage Homes had a return on equity of 17.63% and a net margin of 12.54%. The company had revenue of $1.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. On average, research analysts predict that Meritage Homes will post 19.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Meritage Homes Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a dividend of $0.75 per share. This is an increase from Meritage Homes’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.27. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. Meritage Homes’s dividend payout ratio is presently 13.99%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Alison Sasser sold 355 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $152.61, for a total transaction of $54,176.55. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 869 shares in the company, valued at approximately $132,618.09. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other news, CAO Alison Sasser sold 355 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $152.61, for a total value of $54,176.55. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 869 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $132,618.09. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Phillippe Lord sold 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $162.79, for a total value of $406,975.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 100,266 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,322,302.14. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 3,998 shares of company stock worth $635,171 in the last three months. 2.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.