GAMMA Investing LLC Increases Stock Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 9.5% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 3,521 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 305 shares during the quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $726,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 0.9% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. now owns 6,686 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,177,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares in the last quarter. Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co increased its stake in Garmin by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co now owns 14,056 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $2,290,000 after buying an additional 70 shares during the period. Buckingham Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in Garmin by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Buckingham Capital Management Inc. now owns 11,715 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $2,062,000 after buying an additional 80 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its holdings in Garmin by 5.8% in the 2nd quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 1,522 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $248,000 after buying an additional 83 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Private Advisor Group LLC boosted its position in Garmin by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 4,314 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $759,000 after buying an additional 83 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 81.60% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GRMN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Barclays lifted their target price on Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley downgraded Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a report on Monday, October 7th. StockNews.com cut Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $171.00.

Garmin Stock Up 1.3 %

NYSE:GRMN opened at $207.15 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $39.78 billion, a PE ratio of 26.29, a P/E/G ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 0.98. The business’s 50 day moving average is $208.66 and its two-hundred day moving average is $183.66. Garmin Ltd. has a 52 week low of $119.15 and a 52 week high of $222.97.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.99 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.46 by $0.53. The business had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.44 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.99% and a net margin of 25.48%. The business’s revenue was up 24.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.41 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In related news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total transaction of $123,328.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares in the company, valued at $1,291,484.70. This represents a 8.72 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares in the company, valued at $5,743,019.88. This represents a 6.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Garmin 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.