WESPAC Advisors LLC Sells 652 Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

WESPAC Advisors LLC reduced its holdings in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 12.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 4,554 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 652 shares during the quarter. WESPAC Advisors LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $939,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.0% during the third 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 purchasing an additional 134,303 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.7% during the third 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 purchasing an additional 112,815 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings 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. Disciplined Growth Investors Inc. MN lifted its holdings in Garmin by 3.6% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 48,645 shares during the period. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors lifted its holdings in Garmin by 4.1% in the third quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 767,729 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $135,143,000 after acquiring an additional 30,011 shares during the period. 81.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Garmin news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares in the company, valued at $5,743,019.88. This trade represents a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 19.54% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GRMN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Tigress Financial increased their target price on Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Barclays upped their price target on Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Garmin to a “sell” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Garmin currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $206.80.

Garmin Trading Down 1.9 %

Shares of Garmin stock opened at $224.67 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $43.23 billion, a PE ratio of 30.73, a PEG ratio of 1.36 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin Ltd. has a 12 month low of $131.20 and a 12 month high of $246.50. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $213.43 and a 200 day moving average of $195.51.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.51. Garmin had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 22.42%. The business had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.72 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Garmin Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared 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. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.60%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. Garmin’s dividend payout ratio is currently 41.04%.

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.