Meritage Homes Corp Hits 20-Day High
Meritage Homes Corp (MTH.N) has reached a significant milestone by hitting a 20-day high in its stock price. This upward movement of +4.45% reflects positive market sentiment towards the company.
The broader market is currently trading sideways, with major benchmarks showing mixed signals. Despite this lack of clear direction, MTH's performance stands out, indicating strong investor interest.
Technical indicators suggest that the stock's recent high could attract further buying interest, potentially leading to additional gains in the near future.
Investors are advised to monitor the stock closely as it may continue to react to market trends and technical signals.
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Company Overview: Meritage Homes Corp is a homebuilding company that focuses on residential construction.
Stock Price Adjustment: The company has cut its target price from $101 to $95, indicating a reassessment of its market value.
- Delivery Performance: Meritage Homes delivered 3,755 homes in Q4 2025, generating $1.4 billion in revenue, despite a 7% decline in delivery volume compared to the previous year, highlighting ongoing market demand challenges.
- Capital Allocation Strategy: The company strategically terminated certain land deals to redeploy capital, planning to buy back $400 million in shares in 2026, aiming to enhance long-term portfolio value creation.
- Financial Metrics: The adjusted gross margin for the fourth quarter was 19.3%, down from 23.3% a year ago, primarily impacted by $27.9 million in land deal termination charges and other nonrecurring expenses, indicating pressure on profitability.
- Future Outlook: The company expects 2026 closings to align with 2025 performance, with community count growth projected at 5% to 10%, while management remains optimistic about potential improvements in the spring selling season despite ongoing affordability challenges and market uncertainties.
- Stable Sales Orders: Meritage Homes reported full-year sales orders of 14,650 homes for 2025, consistent with the previous year, demonstrating effective strategies in opening new communities and managing inventory despite market challenges.
- Significant Revenue Decline: The company recorded home closing revenue of $1.4 billion in Q4 2025, a 12% year-over-year decrease primarily due to lower closing volume and average sales prices, reflecting ongoing pressures in the affordable housing market.
- Gross Margin Decline: The home closing gross margin for Q4 2025 was 16.5%, down 670 basis points from the prior year, largely impacted by non-recurring charges and increased utilization of incentives, indicating challenges in cost control.
- Shareholder Return Strategy: In Q4 2025, Meritage repurchased 2.2 million shares for $150 million, emphasizing a focus on capital utilization in current market conditions, while planning to repurchase $400 million in shares in 2026 to address stock undervaluation.
- Earnings Release Date: Meritage Homes is set to announce its Q4 earnings on January 28 after market close, with a consensus EPS estimate of $1.52, reflecting a significant year-over-year decline of 67.8%, indicating pressure on profitability.
- Revenue Expectations Decline: The anticipated revenue for Q4 is $1.49 billion, down 6.9% year-over-year, which highlights the ongoing weakness in the housing market and reduced demand that could impact the company's overall financial performance.
- Historical Performance Review: Over the past year, Meritage Homes has beaten EPS estimates 75% of the time but only 50% of the time for revenue, showcasing volatility in its profitability metrics.
- Estimate Revision Situation: In the last three months, there have been no upward revisions for EPS estimates, with 8 downward revisions, and similarly, revenue estimates have seen no upward revisions and 7 downward revisions, indicating a weakening market confidence in the company's future performance.

- Dividend Yield Analysis: Meritage Homes Corp's latest dividend expectation stands at an annualized yield of 2.4%, closely tied to the company's profitability fluctuations, reflecting a cautiously optimistic market outlook on its future earnings.
- Volatility Assessment: With a trailing twelve-month volatility of 39% based on the last 251 trading days' closing prices, Meritage's stock exhibits significant price fluctuations, necessitating careful risk-reward evaluations by investors.
- Options Trading Dynamics: On Friday, the put volume among S&P 500 components reached 1.53 million contracts, while call volume hit 2.57 million, indicating a preference for call options among investors, which reflects a bullish market sentiment.
- Options Market Trends: The current put-to-call ratio of 0.59 is below the long-term median of 0.65, suggesting a positive outlook on Meritage's future performance, which may influence its stock price trajectory.

- Rating Downgrade: BofA Securities downgraded Meritage Homes and Taylor Morrison Home from Buy to Neutral due to downside risks to 2026 earnings, reflecting a cautious outlook on the industry's future.
- Market Performance: Despite homebuilder stocks rallying 13% year-to-date, significantly outperforming the S&P 500's 1%, analysts highlight that weak employment and migration trends, along with ongoing inflation, will pressure fundamentals.
- Earnings Forecast Adjustment: BofA expects a decline in return on equity across most builders and has reduced its 2026 EPS estimates by 6%, indicating a conservative outlook on gross margins, particularly for Meritage due to higher land cost pressures.
- Intensified Competition: Analysts believe that while upcoming housing policy announcements may improve market sentiment, lower mortgage rates are unlikely to significantly boost entry-level demand, potentially increasing resale inventory and intensifying competition for new home sales.








