Inspire Advisors LLC Boosts Stock Position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Inspire Advisors LLC raised its position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 4.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 8,181 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 323 shares during the quarter. Inspire Advisors LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $1,687,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Miller Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Garmin in the fourth quarter valued at $637,000. King Luther Capital Management Corp raised its stake in shares of Garmin by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. King Luther Capital Management Corp now owns 9,125 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $1,882,000 after buying an additional 152 shares during the period. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Garmin by 25.5% in the fourth quarter. Sage Mountain Advisors LLC now owns 1,619 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $334,000 after buying an additional 329 shares during the period. Independent Advisor Alliance raised its stake in shares of Garmin by 23.5% in the fourth quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance now owns 2,246 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $463,000 after buying an additional 428 shares during the period. Finally, Daiwa Securities Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Garmin by 6.7% in the fourth quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 20,134 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $4,153,000 after buying an additional 1,257 shares during the period. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Garmin

In other news, COO Patrick Desbois sold 6,911 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $227.15, for a total value of $1,569,833.65. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 63,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,321,353.20. This represents a 9.88 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,763 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.55, for a total value of $625,957.65. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 30,936 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,008,550.80. This represents a 8.20 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 23,274 shares of company stock valued at $5,242,686 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently issued reports on GRMN. Tigress Financial boosted their price objective on Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Garmin to a “sell” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $164.00 to $171.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped 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. Finally, Barclays upped 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 equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $210.80.

Garmin Price Performance

Shares of GRMN stock opened at $215.11 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.39 billion, a PE ratio of 29.43, a P/E/G ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.96. Garmin Ltd. has a 1-year low of $138.86 and a 1-year high of $246.50. The business has a 50-day moving average of $216.43 and a 200 day moving average of $199.91.

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 the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.51. The company had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 22.42%. Garmin’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.72 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 EPS for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The business 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 dividend of $0.90 per share. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.