Raymond James Financial Inc. Takes Position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm acquired 159,000 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock, valued at approximately $32,795,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,912,536 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,216,819,000 after acquiring an additional 134,303 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Garmin by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,363,464 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $765,912,000 after purchasing an additional 112,815 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in Garmin by 40.8% in 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 in the last quarter. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN grew its position in Garmin by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN now owns 1,401,004 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $246,619,000 after purchasing an additional 48,645 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Garmin by 1.6% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 889,838 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $183,538,000 after purchasing an additional 14,200 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 81.60% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Garmin to a “sell” rating and increased their target price for the company from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $210.80.

Insider Activity

In other Garmin news, CEO Clifton A. Pemble sold 7,202 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.14, for a total value of $1,635,862.28. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 149,525 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,963,108.50. This trade represents a 4.60 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,743,019.88. This trade represents a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 26,103 shares of company stock worth $5,852,364. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Garmin Trading Down 3.1 %

GRMN opened at $208.95 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $216.85 and a 200 day moving average of $200.32. The company has a market cap of $40.20 billion, a PE ratio of 28.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.96. Garmin Ltd. has a 12 month low of $138.86 and a 12 month high of $246.50.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.51. Garmin had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 19.31%. The business had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.70 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.72 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be given a dividend of $0.90 per share. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.72%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 41.04%.

About Garmin

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.