Ameritas Advisory Services LLC Purchases New Stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Ameritas Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 2,134 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock, valued at approximately $440,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in GRMN. State Street Corp boosted its position in Garmin by 2.0% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,912,536 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,216,819,000 after acquiring an additional 134,303 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Garmin by 2.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,363,464 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $765,912,000 after purchasing an additional 112,815 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its stake in Garmin by 40.8% in the third 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 last quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. lifted its position in Garmin by 0.6% during the second quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 2,006,563 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $326,909,000 after buying an additional 11,666 shares during the period. Finally, Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN boosted its stake in Garmin by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN now owns 1,401,004 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $246,619,000 after buying an additional 48,645 shares during the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GRMN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the company 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. Finally, Tigress Financial increased their target price on Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. 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 MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $171.00.

Garmin Stock Performance

GRMN opened at $215.65 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $41.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.37, a PEG ratio of 1.32 and a beta of 0.98. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $211.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $188.46. Garmin Ltd. has a twelve month low of $119.15 and a twelve month high of $222.97.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.99 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.46 by $0.53. The firm 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 quarterly revenue was up 24.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.41 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Garmin

In related news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 27,612 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,743,019.88. This trade represents a 6.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total value of $123,328.70. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares in the company, valued at $1,291,484.70. The trade was a 8.72 % 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.

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.