State of Michigan Retirement System Purchases 1,100 Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

State of Michigan Retirement System increased its position in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 2.3% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 48,697 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,100 shares during the quarter. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Garmin were worth $10,044,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Farther Finance Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 10.4% in the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 986 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $173,000 after acquiring an additional 93 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its position in Garmin by 6.9% in the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 28,241 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $4,563,000 after purchasing an additional 1,814 shares during the last quarter. National Pension Service boosted its stake in Garmin by 25.7% in the third quarter. National Pension Service now owns 284,065 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $50,004,000 after purchasing an additional 58,025 shares in the last quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Garmin by 1.9% during the third quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 61,514 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $10,828,000 after purchasing an additional 1,136 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Amalgamated Bank increased its stake in shares of Garmin by 12.7% in the third quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 35,188 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $6,194,000 after buying an additional 3,975 shares in the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Garmin Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:GRMN opened at $224.97 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $43.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.78, a P/E/G ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a 50 day moving average of $215.85 and a 200-day moving average of $198.87. Garmin Ltd. has a one year low of $138.86 and a one year high of $246.50.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.51. The firm had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 19.31%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.72 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be paid a $0.90 dividend. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.60%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s payout ratio is 41.04%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Matthew Munn sold 4,637 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $225.31, for a total transaction of $1,044,762.47. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 11,450 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,579,799.50. This trade represents a 28.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 23,274 shares of company stock worth $5,242,686. 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.