State of Michigan Retirement System Has $10.04 Million Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

State of Michigan Retirement System increased its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 2.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 48,697 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 1,100 shares during the period. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Garmin were worth $10,044,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in GRMN. FMR LLC raised its stake 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 valued at $664,540,000 after purchasing an additional 1,093,219 shares during the period. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. acquired a new stake in Garmin in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $53,252,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. lifted its stake in Garmin by 1,580.3% in the 3rd quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 287,283 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $50,570,000 after acquiring an additional 270,186 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its position in Garmin by 560.8% during the 3rd quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 203,713 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $35,860,000 after acquiring an additional 172,883 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its stake in shares of Garmin by 32.2% during the 4th quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 675,950 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $139,421,000 after acquiring an additional 164,818 shares in the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Garmin

In other news, 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 transaction of $1,044,762.47. Following the transaction, the director now owns 11,450 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,579,799.50. This trade represents a 28.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,743,019.88. This trade represents a 6.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 23,274 shares of company stock worth $5,242,686 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on GRMN. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Garmin to a “sell” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Tigress Financial increased their price target on Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Garmin presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $210.80.

Garmin Price Performance

Garmin stock opened at $224.97 on Thursday. Garmin Ltd. has a fifty-two week low of $138.86 and a fifty-two week high of $246.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.29 billion, a PE ratio of 30.78, a P/E/G ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.98. The company’s 50-day moving average is $215.85 and its 200-day moving average is $198.87.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last released 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. Garmin had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 22.42%. The firm had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.72 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 EPS for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.60%. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.