Haverford Trust Co Reduces Stock Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Haverford Trust Co reduced its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 20.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,031 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 270 shares during the quarter. Haverford Trust Co’s holdings in Garmin were worth $213,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC boosted its position in shares of Garmin by 40.8% during 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 purchasing an additional 1,093,219 shares in the last quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. lifted its position in Garmin by 1,580.3% during the third 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 buying an additional 270,186 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,067,708 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $3,726,645,000 after buying an additional 215,344 shares in the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH grew its position in shares of Garmin by 32.2% in 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 buying an additional 164,818 shares during the period. Finally, Teacher Retirement System of Texas lifted its position 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 acquiring an additional 159,860 shares during the period. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded 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. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $210.80.

Garmin Trading Up 1.9 %

Shares of GRMN opened at $218.47 on Wednesday. Garmin Ltd. has a 12 month low of $138.86 and a 12 month high of $246.50. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $217.23 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $202.32. The company has a market cap of $42.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.89, a P/E/G ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.96.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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%. Garmin’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.72 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast 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 $0.90 dividend. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio is currently 49.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Garmin news, COO Patrick Desbois sold 6,911 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.15, for a total transaction of $1,569,833.65. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 63,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,321,353.20. This represents a 9.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, VP Susan Lyman sold 2,829 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the vice president now owns 8,432 shares in the company, valued at $1,817,180.32. This represents a 25.12 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 24,342 shares of company stock valued at $5,486,094. Company insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

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.