Creative Planning Raises Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Creative Planning lifted its stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 7.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 33,492 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,380 shares during the quarter. Creative Planning’s holdings in Garmin were worth $5,456,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. NEOS Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Garmin during the fourth quarter valued at $273,000. Rafferty Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 3.0% during the fourth quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 12,893 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,657,000 after purchasing an additional 379 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Garmin by 28.4% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 862,527 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $110,869,000 after buying an additional 190,739 shares during the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC increased its holdings in Garmin by 330.0% in the 4th quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 24,696 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,174,000 after buying an additional 18,953 shares during the period. Finally, Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. raised its position in Garmin by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 12,603 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,620,000 after buying an additional 289 shares during the last quarter. 73.41% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

GRMN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Barclays cut shares of Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $181.00 to $133.00 in a report on Friday, September 13th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Tigress Financial raised their price objective on Garmin from $210.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, September 19th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Garmin currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $152.17.

Garmin Price Performance

NYSE GRMN opened at $169.13 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $174.77 and its 200-day simple moving average is $164.15. The company has a market cap of $32.49 billion, a PE ratio of 23.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 1.00. Garmin Ltd. has a 1-year low of $99.61 and a 1-year high of $184.42.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.40 by $0.18. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.09% and a net margin of 24.36%. The company had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.42 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.45 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 6.05 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Garmin

In other Garmin news, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total value of $499,015.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 88,622 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $16,081,348.12. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, insider Cheng-Wei Wang sold 10,055 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.16, for a total value of $1,781,343.80. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 40,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,257,359.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total transaction of $499,015.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 88,622 shares in the company, valued at $16,081,348.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 12,892 shares of company stock valued at $2,296,174. Corporate insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Garmin Company Profile

Garmin Ltd. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes a range of wireless devices worldwide. Its Fitness segment offers running and multi-sport watches; cycling products; smartwatch devices; scales and monitors; and fitness accessories. This segment also provides Garmin Connect and Garmin Connect Mobile, which are web and mobile platforms where users can track and analyze their fitness, activities and workouts, and wellness data; and Connect IQ, an application development platform.