Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) Shares Gap Down – What’s Next?

Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) gapped down before the market opened on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $170.03, but opened at $164.00. Garmin shares last traded at $162.77, with a volume of 180,558 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GRMN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com cut Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research report on Monday. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Garmin from $210.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, September 19th. Finally, Barclays cut shares of Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $181.00 to $133.00 in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $158.50.

Garmin Price Performance

The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $174.35 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $164.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $31.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.22, a PEG ratio of 3.04 and a beta of 0.99.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.58 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.40 by $0.18. Garmin had a net margin of 24.36% and a return on equity of 17.09%. The business had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.42 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.45 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 6.05 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total value of $499,015.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 88,622 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,081,348.12. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other Garmin news, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total value of $499,015.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 88,622 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,081,348.12. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Cheng-Wei Wang sold 10,055 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.16, for a total value of $1,781,343.80. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 40,965 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,257,359.40. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 12,892 shares of company stock worth $2,296,174 over the last quarter. 19.54% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Garmin

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. bought a new position in Garmin during the 2nd quarter valued at $31,000. Clearstead Trust LLC acquired a new position in Garmin in the first quarter worth about $30,000. Family Firm Inc. acquired a new position in Garmin in the second quarter worth about $35,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. increased its holdings in Garmin by 73.3% in the second quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 234 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $38,000 after buying an additional 99 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in Garmin during the second quarter valued at approximately $46,000. Institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

Garmin Company Profile

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.