Loomis Sayles & Co. L P Lowers Position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Loomis Sayles & Co. L P lowered its holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 12.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 456 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 66 shares during the period. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P’s holdings in Garmin were worth $80,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of GRMN. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. purchased a new stake in shares of Garmin in the 2nd quarter valued at about $31,000. Larson Financial Group LLC increased its position in shares of Garmin by 578.6% during the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 190 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 162 shares during the last quarter. Family Firm Inc. bought a new position in shares of Garmin during the 2nd quarter valued at about $35,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. increased its position in shares of Garmin by 73.3% during the 2nd quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 234 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $38,000 after purchasing an additional 99 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new position in shares of Garmin during the 2nd quarter valued at about $46,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on GRMN. StockNews.com lowered Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Tigress Financial increased their price objective on Garmin from $210.00 to $215.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. Barclays increased their price objective on Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Garmin currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $162.67.

Garmin Price Performance

GRMN opened at $212.09 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $186.08 and its 200 day simple moving average is $175.15. Garmin Ltd. has a 1 year low of $119.15 and a 1 year high of $216.44. The firm has a market cap of $40.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.91, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 0.97.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.99 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.46 by $0.53. The firm had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.44 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.99% and a net margin of 25.48%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 24.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.41 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.01 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In other news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total value of $123,328.70. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,291,484.70. This trade represents a 8.72 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Garmin 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.