Boston Partners Reduces Position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Boston Partners decreased its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 26.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 598,569 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 212,962 shares during the period. Boston Partners owned 0.31% of Garmin worth $122,038,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of GRMN. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in Garmin by 11.0% during the third quarter. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,318 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,288,000 after buying an additional 725 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its position in Garmin by 9.8% during the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 17,998 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,168,000 after buying an additional 1,607 shares in the last quarter. Claro Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Garmin during the third quarter worth $242,000. Swiss National Bank increased its position in Garmin by 0.4% during the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 456,000 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $80,270,000 after buying an additional 1,700 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Prospera Financial Services Inc increased its position in Garmin by 5.5% during the third quarter. Prospera Financial Services Inc now owns 5,290 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $932,000 after buying an additional 276 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Insider Activity at Garmin

In other Garmin news, VP Susan Lyman sold 2,829 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $215.51, for a total transaction of $609,677.79. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 8,432 shares in the company, valued at $1,817,180.32. The trade was a 25.12 % 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, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total value of $366,270.39. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 27,612 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,743,019.88. This represents a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 26,103 shares of company stock worth $5,852,364. 19.54% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Garmin Trading Down 2.8 %

Shares of Garmin stock opened at $206.47 on Wednesday. Garmin Ltd. has a twelve month low of $138.86 and a twelve month high of $246.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $39.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.25, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $217.05 and its 200 day moving average price is $201.23.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 analysts’ expectations of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.72 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 EPS for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Investors of record on Friday, March 13th will be issued a $0.90 dividend. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s payout ratio is currently 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.