Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the six ratings firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, four have given a hold recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $156.83.

Several equities analysts have issued reports on the stock. Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of Garmin from $175.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 14th. Bank of America downgraded shares of Garmin from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and cut their target price for the stock from $165.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 22nd. Finally, StockNews.com raised Garmin from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th.

Garmin Trading Down 1.8 %

Shares of GRMN stock opened at $179.94 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $170.40 and its 200-day moving average price is $158.35. The stock has a market cap of $34.56 billion, a PE ratio of 25.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin has a 12 month low of $99.61 and a 12 month high of $183.88.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.58 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 the consensus estimate of $1.42 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.45 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Garmin will post 6.05 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.75 per share. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. Garmin’s payout ratio is 42.31%.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In other Garmin news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,350 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, June 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $161.63, for a total value of $379,830.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 28,010 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,527,256.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Garmin news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $161.63, for a total value of $379,830.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 28,010 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,527,256.30. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Cheng-Wei Wang sold 10,055 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.16, for a total transaction of $1,781,343.80. Following the sale, the insider now owns 40,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,257,359.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 12,492 shares of company stock valued at $2,176,989 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Garmin

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in GRMN. Epoch Investment Partners Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Garmin in the 4th quarter worth about $54,460,000. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position 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 purchasing an additional 411,084 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in Garmin during the second quarter valued at approximately $45,999,000. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its stake in shares of Garmin by 34.0% in the 2nd quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,098,443 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $178,958,000 after purchasing an additional 278,990 shares during the last quarter. Finally, M&G Plc purchased a new position in shares of Garmin in the 1st quarter worth approximately $38,727,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

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.