Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd Increases Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd increased its holdings in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 392.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 3,381 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,694 shares during the period. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd’s holdings in Garmin were worth $698,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp boosted its position in 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 buying an additional 134,303 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Garmin by 2.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,363,464 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $765,912,000 after buying an additional 112,815 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position 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 during the last quarter. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN boosted its position in Garmin by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN now owns 1,401,004 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $246,619,000 after buying an additional 48,645 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Garmin by 1.6% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 889,838 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $183,538,000 after buying an additional 14,200 shares during the last quarter. 81.60% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Garmin news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 2,763 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $226.55, for a total value of $625,957.65. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 30,936 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,008,550.80. This trade represents a 8.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Clifton A. Pemble sold 7,202 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $227.14, for a total transaction of $1,635,862.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 149,525 shares in the company, valued at $33,963,108.50. The trade was a 4.60 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 24,342 shares of company stock worth $5,486,094 over the last quarter. 19.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have weighed in on GRMN. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of 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. upped their price objective on shares of Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Garmin to a “sell” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Garmin currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $210.80.

Garmin Stock Performance

Shares of GRMN stock opened at $208.50 on Friday. Garmin Ltd. has a one year low of $138.86 and a one year high of $246.50. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $216.95 and its 200-day simple moving average is $201.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $40.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.52, a PEG 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 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.51. The firm had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. Garmin had a net margin of 22.42% and a return on equity of 19.31%. Garmin’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.72 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 EPS for the current year.

Garmin Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 27th. Investors of record on Friday, March 13th will be paid 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 1.73%. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 41.04%.

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.