Harvest Investment Services LLC Purchases Shares of 1,639 Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Harvest Investment Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 1,639 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock, valued at approximately $338,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Passumpsic Savings Bank bought a new position in Garmin during the third quarter valued at $3,137,000. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of Garmin in the 3rd quarter valued at about $501,000. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB purchased a new position in Garmin in the third quarter worth about $185,000. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its stake in Garmin by 35.8% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 135,477 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $22,755,000 after acquiring an additional 35,703 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in Garmin by 3.1% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 199,713 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $35,155,000 after purchasing an additional 5,965 shares during the period. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on GRMN. Barclays lifted their target price on Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of Garmin from $260.00 to $220.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 17th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Garmin to a “sell” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $164.00 to $171.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their price target on shares of Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Garmin currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $202.80.

Garmin Stock Up 2.4 %

GRMN stock opened at $191.40 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $36.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.18, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.92. Garmin Ltd. has a twelve month low of $140.46 and a twelve month high of $246.50. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $208.18 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $205.03.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted 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 firm had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 19.31%. The company’s revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.72 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 EPS for the current year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed 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. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.88%. Garmin’s payout ratio is currently 49.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Garmin news, VP Susan Lyman sold 2,829 shares of the 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 sale, the vice president now owns 8,432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,817,180.32. This trade represents a 25.12 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Clifton A. Pemble sold 7,202 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.14, for a total value of $1,635,862.28. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 149,525 shares in the company, valued at $33,963,108.50. This represents a 4.60 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 24,342 shares of company stock valued at $5,486,094 over the last three months. 19.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.