HighTower Advisors LLC Has $10.69 Million Stock Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

HighTower Advisors LLC trimmed its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 5.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 51,842 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 3,080 shares during the quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $10,693,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 2.0% during 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 lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,363,464 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $765,912,000 after buying an additional 112,815 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 40.8% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,775,154 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $664,540,000 after buying an additional 1,093,219 shares during the last quarter. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 3.6% during the 3rd 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 buying an additional 48,645 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 1.6% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 889,838 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $183,538,000 after buying an additional 14,200 shares during the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on GRMN shares. Tigress Financial increased their target price on Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Garmin to a “sell” rating and increased their target price for the company from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Barclays increased their target price on Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $210.80.

Garmin Trading Up 2.2 %

Shares of GRMN stock opened at $214.00 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $41.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.28, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $216.99 and a 200-day moving average of $200.84. Garmin Ltd. has a 1-year low of $138.86 and a 1-year high of $246.50.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last issued its quarterly 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%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.72 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.68%. Garmin’s payout ratio is 41.04%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, VP Susan Lyman sold 2,829 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $215.51, for a total transaction of $609,677.79. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 8,432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,817,180.32. This trade represents a 25.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,743,019.88. This represents a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 26,103 shares of company stock valued at $5,852,364 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

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.