Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Decreases Position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board lowered its stake in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 71.3% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 3,393 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 8,412 shares during the period. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board’s holdings in Garmin were worth $597,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Garmin by 37.4% during the 1st quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 4,767 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $710,000 after acquiring an additional 1,298 shares during the period. Bessemer Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Garmin by 19.3% in the 1st quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 3,290 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $490,000 after buying an additional 533 shares in the last quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Garmin by 11.5% in the first quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 3,927 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $585,000 after acquiring an additional 405 shares during the period. Advisors Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Garmin during the first quarter worth $1,091,000. Finally, 1832 Asset Management L.P. raised its position in Garmin by 11.4% during the 1st quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 19,646 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $2,925,000 after purchasing an additional 2,018 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the 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 completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,291,484.70. This represents a 8.72 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total transaction of $499,015.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 88,622 shares in the company, valued at $16,081,348.12. This represents a 3.01 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 3,424 shares of company stock worth $638,159. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Garmin Trading Up 1.8 %

Shares of GRMN opened at $209.19 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $40.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.55, a PEG ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 0.97. Garmin Ltd. has a twelve month low of $119.15 and a twelve month high of $215.55. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $181.49 and its two-hundred day moving average is $173.40.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.99 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.46 by $0.53. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.99% and a net margin of 25.48%. The business had revenue of $1.59 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.44 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.41 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 24.1% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Garmin Ltd. will post 6.88 EPS for the current year.

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.