Royal Fund Management LLC Decreases Stock Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Royal Fund Management LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 49.2% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 26,169 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 25,335 shares during the quarter. Royal Fund Management LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $5,481,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,912,536 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $1,216,819,000 after acquiring an additional 134,303 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Garmin by 2.7% in the 3rd 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 buying an additional 112,815 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 1,093,219 shares in the last quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. increased its stake in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 11,666 shares during the period. Finally, Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN increased its stake in shares of Garmin by 3.6% during the third 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 acquiring an additional 48,645 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 81.60% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Garmin

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of Garmin 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 owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,743,019.88. The trade was a 6.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total transaction of $123,328.70. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,291,484.70. This represents a 8.72 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 19.54% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Garmin Stock Up 0.4 %

NYSE:GRMN opened at $215.50 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $41.38 billion, a PE ratio of 27.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin Ltd. has a 52-week low of $119.15 and a 52-week high of $222.97. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $211.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of $187.48.

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on GRMN. Barclays lifted their price target on Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Tigress Financial raised their price objective on shares of Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Garmin has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $171.00.

Garmin Company 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.