Patrick Desbois Sells 6,911 Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Stock

Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) COO Patrick Desbois sold 6,911 shares of the firm’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 value 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 $14,321,353.20. The trade was a 9.88 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Garmin Stock Up 2.2 %

GRMN opened at $228.88 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $215.06 and its two-hundred day moving average is $197.58. The company has a market capitalization of $44.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.31, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin Ltd. has a 52 week low of $136.25 and a 52 week high of $246.50.

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 for 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 quarterly revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.72 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.90 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.57%. Garmin’s payout ratio is currently 41.04%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased 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 valued at $3,726,645,000 after acquiring an additional 215,344 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.0% in 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 increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,438,796 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $913,544,000 after acquiring an additional 75,332 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 1,093,219 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Garmin in the 4th quarter valued at $396,184,000. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GRMN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised Garmin to a “sell” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Tigress Financial increased their price target on Garmin from $265.00 to $285.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays increased their price target 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 given a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $210.80.

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.