Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Receives Average Rating of “Reduce” from Analysts

Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Reduce” by the six research firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, two have issued a hold recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $171.00.

GRMN has been the topic of a number of research reports. Tigress Financial upped their price target on shares of Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Morgan Stanley lowered Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. StockNews.com lowered Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st.

Garmin Price Performance

Shares of GRMN opened at $206.26 on Thursday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $206.91 and its 200-day moving average is $183.19. Garmin has a 12-month low of $119.15 and a 12-month high of $222.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $39.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.18, a P/E/G ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 0.97.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.99 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.46 by $0.53. The business had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.44 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.99% and a net margin of 25.48%. Garmin’s revenue for the quarter was up 24.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.41 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Garmin will post 7.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In other news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total value of $123,328.70. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,291,484.70. The trade was a 8.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total value of $366,270.39. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,743,019.88. The trade was a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Garmin

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of GRMN. FMR LLC increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 40.8% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,775,154 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $664,540,000 after purchasing an additional 1,093,219 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Garmin by 136.7% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 711,849 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $115,177,000 after acquiring an additional 411,084 shares during the period. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. acquired a new position in Garmin in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $53,252,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Garmin in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $45,999,000. Finally, Marshall Wace LLP grew its holdings in shares of Garmin by 34.0% during the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,098,443 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $178,958,000 after purchasing an additional 278,990 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.60% 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.