Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Shares Purchased by Arizona State Retirement System

Arizona State Retirement System increased its holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 1.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 44,663 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 639 shares during the quarter. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Garmin were worth $9,212,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Farther Finance Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Garmin by 10.4% during the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 986 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $173,000 after purchasing an additional 93 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its stake in shares of Garmin by 6.9% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 28,241 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $4,563,000 after buying an additional 1,814 shares during the last quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 1.9% in the 3rd quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 61,514 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $10,828,000 after buying an additional 1,136 shares during the period. Amalgamated Bank boosted its stake in shares of Garmin by 12.7% in the third quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 35,188 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $6,194,000 after buying an additional 3,975 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Catalina Capital Group LLC grew its holdings in Garmin by 9.0% during the third quarter. Catalina Capital Group LLC now owns 1,418 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $250,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares during the period. 81.60% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Patrick Desbois sold 6,911 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.15, for a total transaction of $1,569,833.65. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 63,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,321,353.20. The trade was a 9.88 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Matthew Munn sold 4,637 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $225.31, for a total value of $1,044,762.47. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 11,450 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,579,799.50. The trade was a 28.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 23,274 shares of company stock valued at $5,242,686. Insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Garmin Stock Down 1.3 %

Shares of GRMN opened at $221.86 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $216.07 and its two-hundred day moving average is $199.03. The stock has a market cap of $42.69 billion, a PE ratio of 30.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin Ltd. has a 52-week low of $138.86 and a 52-week high of $246.50.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.51. The company had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 19.31%. Garmin’s revenue was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.72 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Investors of record on Friday, March 13th will be given a dividend of $0.90 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.62%. 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.