Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co Has $3.24 Million Stock Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co raised its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 15.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 15,702 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 2,104 shares during the period. Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Co’s holdings in Garmin were worth $3,239,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Garmin by 40.8% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,775,154 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $664,540,000 after buying an additional 1,093,219 shares in the last quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Garmin by 1,580.3% in the 3rd quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 287,283 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $50,570,000 after purchasing an additional 270,186 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Garmin by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,067,708 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $3,726,645,000 after purchasing an additional 215,344 shares during the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH increased its position in shares of Garmin by 32.2% during the 4th quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 675,950 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $139,421,000 after purchasing an additional 164,818 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Teacher Retirement System of Texas lifted its holdings in Garmin by 79.3% during the 4th quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 361,490 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $74,561,000 after purchasing an additional 159,860 shares during the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on GRMN. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley raised Garmin to a “sell” rating and raised their price target for the company from $164.00 to $171.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Garmin presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $210.80.

Garmin Price Performance

GRMN stock opened at $213.59 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $41.10 billion, a PE ratio of 29.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $217.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $202.73. Garmin Ltd. has a fifty-two week low of $138.86 and a fifty-two week 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 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.51. The company had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 22.42%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.72 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be paid a $0.90 dividend. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.25%.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In related news, CEO Clifton A. Pemble sold 7,202 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $227.14, for a total transaction of $1,635,862.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 149,525 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,963,108.50. The trade was a 4.60 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, COO Patrick Desbois sold 6,911 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were 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 directly owns 63,048 shares in the company, valued at $14,321,353.20. The trade was a 9.88 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 24,342 shares of company stock worth $5,486,094 in the last quarter. 19.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.