Retirement Fund of the State of New York reduces GATX stake

An investor in the New York State Common Retirement Fund, regarded as one of the most powerful pension systems in the United States, recently reported that the fund's stake in GATX decreased by 0.6% during the fourth quarter of 2016. According to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, this number of shares has decreased by 0.6% since the fund sold 1,321 shares last quarter, leaving it with 238,818 shares, worth $25.4 million – or approximately 0.68% of GATX's total market share price. Analysts at Wells Fargo and Susquehanna have raised their target prices for GATX stock to $125 and $115 respectively, despite this decrease in investment size; despite these increases, analysts remain optimistic about the stock's prospects, despite this reduction in stake size.

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A positive news story regarding GATX's quarterly dividend payout has been posted recently - an important factor for potential investors looking into their long-term planning needs. The company paid its shareholders a dividend of $0.55 per share on 31 March of this year, an increase from the $0.52 dividend paid to investors last quarter. There is also a good deal of support for investing in this well established transportation company right now that has a dividend yield around 2%, which indicates that the company is a good company to invest in.

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In comments made to industry press, analysts claimed that these most recent developments should reassure existing subscribers, both those who are investors seeking growth in the stock market and those that are individuals searching for growth opportunities throughout America. While there is still a great deal of economic difficulty ahead, any rise in the dividend payout of a company coupled with newer research commentary have certainly caught the attention of the media, which warrants further analysis into what these changes might actually mean on a wider scale or on other stocks within related sectors as a result of aligning specific levels of compliance or subsets within an ever-growing network of industrial networks throughout the United States.

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Trade Algo indicate that despite both Sidoti and Wells Fargo maintaining firm "buy" ratings for GATX shares, three firms have rated the stock as average or below par although Citigroup has recently decreased the stock to "stable". In addition, Trade Algo has forecasted a price target of around $117 per share for the transportation company based on an aggregate “Hold” recommendation and also indicates that for those looking to diversify their portfolios over the long term, GATX could be a potentially attractive long-term investment. There has been a good level of interest expressed in this latest Gatx development in the past few days, so all eyes are now eagerly watching how the market will respond in the coming days as we look to see if it continues to strengthen in the coming months.

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As a result of the announcement of GATX Company's first quarter dividend, institutional investors have been active in both buying and selling the company's shares

As a result of the increasing activity among hedge funds and institutional investors in the third quarter of 2020 for GATX Co., a transportation company, the company has seen an increase in purchases and sales. As a result of these changes, TCI Wealth Advisors Inc. owns 569 shares of GATX at a value of $48,000. Cutler Group LLC CA has bought additional shares at a value of $50,000 to add to their portfolio; and Bessemer Group Inc. bought more shares for their portfolio valued at $50,000. In the last month, GATX was increased by 489.1%, which now valued at $65,000. Further to this news, Thomas A. Ellman, the company's chief financial officer, recently transferred 18,900 shares of the company's stock for an average price of $115.98, for a total transaction of $2,192,022.00. Once the transaction is complete, he will have 35,361 shares of the company valued at $4,101,168.78 under his ownership.

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Additionally, the Company's Senior Vice President Jeffery R. Young sold 216 shares on February 3rd for a total of $25,293 and insiders are only holding 1.80% of the company's stock, according to the SEC filing.

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It is important to note that, despite this trading activity, GATX recently declared a quarterly dividend that yielded positive results by raising the dividend from $0.55 per share to $0.55 per share (a DPR of 50.69%). The annualized dividend rate of stockholders for March 31, 2018 was $2.20 per share, which is a significant increase from the previous payment.

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In the first trading day of the week, GATX (NYSE:GATX) opened trading at $112.29. The company currently boasts a market capitalization of approximately $3.97 billion with a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 25.87 and a beta ratio of 1.5%, which is slightly above the average of 1.0%.

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It is expected that the transportation company will be able to beat the consensus of $1.38 per share for the quarter with revenue of $322.70 million and beat analyst estimates of $327.63 million in earnings per share on January 24th. A net margin of 12.25% was recorded by the company during the period of the quarter. The earnings-per-share figure for GATX Co during the same quarter last year was $1.69. Analysts are predicting that GATX Co will be able to earn $6.71 per share in the current fiscal year.

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There is still an underlying trend of investment and trading activity which can be bullish or bearish depending on which advisor one consults, but GATX remains an interesting case study for those who are interested in tracking the trends in the industry and company's performance against general market sentiment, economic statistics, and general market sentiment.