Nordea Investment Management AB Has $2.56 Million Stock Holdings in Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE:MLM)

Nordea Investment Management AB raised its position in shares of Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE:MLM) by 6.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 4,918 shares of the construction company’s stock after purchasing an additional 302 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB’s holdings in Martin Marietta Materials were worth $2,564,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 23.3% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 2,678,425 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $1,441,663,000 after purchasing an additional 506,705 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position in Martin Marietta Materials by 15.3% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,515,441 shares of the construction company’s stock valued at $1,353,936,000 after buying an additional 334,605 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 76.2% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,628,701 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $876,648,000 after buying an additional 704,460 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 2.1% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 623,681 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $337,903,000 after buying an additional 12,759 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Martin Marietta Materials by 1.9% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 534,801 shares of the construction company’s stock worth $295,397,000 after buying an additional 9,908 shares in the last quarter. 95.04% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

MLM has been the topic of a number of research reports. Wolfe Research upgraded Martin Marietta Materials from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $563.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. BNP Paribas cut Martin Marietta Materials from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Martin Marietta Materials from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $515.00 to $640.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Martin Marietta Materials from $657.00 to $622.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, HSBC upgraded shares of Martin Marietta Materials from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $690.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $643.36.

Martin Marietta Materials Stock Down 1.7 %

Shares of Martin Marietta Materials stock opened at $508.54 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $563.58 and its 200 day moving average is $551.29. Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. has a one year low of $489.90 and a one year high of $633.23. The firm has a market cap of $31.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.85, a PEG ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 2.34 and a quick ratio of 1.24.

Martin Marietta Materials (NYSE:MLM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The construction company reported $5.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $6.41 by ($0.50). The business had revenue of $1.89 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.94 billion. Martin Marietta Materials had a return on equity of 12.53% and a net margin of 30.47%. Martin Marietta Materials’s quarterly revenue was down 5.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $6.94 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. will post 17.58 EPS for the current year.

Martin Marietta Materials Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were paid a $0.79 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $3.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.62%. Martin Marietta Materials’s dividend payout ratio is presently 9.85%.

Martin Marietta Materials Profile

Martin Marietta Materials, Inc, a natural resource-based building materials company, supplies aggregates and heavy-side building materials to the construction industry in the United States and internationally. It offers crushed stone, sand, and gravel products; ready mixed concrete and asphalt; paving products and services; and Portland and specialty cement for use in the infrastructure projects, and nonresidential and residential construction markets, as well as in the railroad, agricultural, utility, and environmental industries.