Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd Raises Stock Holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd raised its position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 64.2% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 18,289 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after buying an additional 7,154 shares during the quarter. Dai ichi Life Insurance Company Ltd’s holdings in Garmin were worth $3,219,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Select Equity Group L.P. increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 0.6% in the second quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 2,006,563 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $326,909,000 after purchasing an additional 11,666 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 0.8% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,735,623 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $282,761,000 after purchasing an additional 13,968 shares during the period. Boston Partners increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 4.3% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 1,416,130 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $210,799,000 after purchasing an additional 58,343 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 34.0% in the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,098,443 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $178,958,000 after purchasing an additional 278,990 shares during the period. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.3% in the second quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 793,914 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $129,345,000 after purchasing an additional 17,634 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

Garmin Stock Performance

GRMN opened at $212.85 on Wednesday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $184.43 and its two-hundred day moving average is $174.63. The company has a market cap of $40.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.01, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 0.97. Garmin Ltd. has a one year low of $119.15 and a one year high of $216.44.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its earnings results 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. The company had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.44 billion. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.99% and a net margin of 25.48%. Garmin’s quarterly revenue was up 24.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.41 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 $1,291,484.70. This represents a 8.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total value of $499,015.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 88,622 shares in the company, valued at $16,081,348.12. This represents a 3.01 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 19.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on GRMN. StockNews.com lowered Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on Garmin from $210.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, September 19th. Morgan Stanley lowered Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a 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 company. According to MarketBeat, Garmin presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $162.67.

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.