Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC Trims Stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC reduced its position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 30.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 141 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 61 shares during the quarter. Capital Advisors Ltd. LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $29,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp boosted 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 purchasing an additional 134,303 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of 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 boosted its holdings in shares of 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 boosted its holdings in shares of 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, Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 767,729 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $135,143,000 after purchasing an additional 30,011 shares in the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Garmin

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total value of $366,270.39. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,743,019.88. This represents a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently weighed in on GRMN. Barclays increased their target price on Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Garmin to a “sell” rating and increased their target price for the company from $164.00 to $171.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Tigress Financial increased their target price on Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Garmin has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $206.80.

Garmin Price Performance

GRMN opened at $222.59 on Tuesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $213.43 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $195.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $42.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.45, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin Ltd. has a one year low of $133.16 and a one year high of $246.50.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.51. The business had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 22.42%. Garmin’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.72 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be given a dividend of $0.90 per share. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s payout ratio is 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.