StockNews.com Downgrades Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) to Hold

StockNews.com lowered shares of Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Friday morning.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Tigress Financial increased their price objective on shares of Garmin from $175.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 14th. Bank of America cut shares of Garmin from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $165.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Garmin from $155.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Garmin from $140.00 to $166.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Garmin currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $156.83.

Garmin Price Performance

Garmin stock opened at $176.56 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $164.93 and a 200-day simple moving average of $149.48. Garmin has a 1-year low of $99.61 and a 1-year high of $178.51. The stock has a market cap of $33.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.83 and a beta of 0.98.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 1st. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.42 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.00 by $0.42. Garmin had a net margin of 24.96% and a return on equity of 17.26%. The business had revenue of $1.38 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.25 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.02 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.4% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Garmin will post 5.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a dividend of $0.75 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.31%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.63, for a total value of $379,830.50. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 28,010 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,527,256.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $161.63, for a total value of $379,830.50. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 28,010 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,527,256.30. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Patrick Desbois sold 4,126 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, June 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $163.52, for a total transaction of $674,683.52. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 58,412 shares in the company, valued at $9,551,530.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 19.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of GRMN. Wetzel Investment Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Garmin in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Clearstead Trust LLC purchased a new position in shares of Garmin in the 1st quarter valued at $30,000. Frazier Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Garmin in the 4th quarter valued at $33,000. Family Firm Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Garmin in the 2nd quarter valued at $35,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in shares of Garmin by 35.2% in the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 380 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $49,000 after buying an additional 99 shares during the last quarter. 73.41% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.