Freedom Investment Management Inc. Sells 1,797 Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Freedom Investment Management Inc. cut its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 45.0% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,193 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 1,797 shares during the period. Freedom Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Garmin were worth $386,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of Garmin by 40.8% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,775,154 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $664,540,000 after acquiring an additional 1,093,219 shares during the last quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. grew its holdings in Garmin by 0.6% during the 2nd 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 buying an additional 11,666 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Garmin by 0.8% in the 2nd 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 acquiring an additional 13,968 shares during the last quarter. 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 worth $178,958,000 after purchasing an additional 278,990 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.3% during the 2nd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 793,914 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $129,345,000 after acquiring an additional 17,634 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.41% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

GRMN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. StockNews.com downgraded Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of 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 downgraded Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Garmin presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $162.67.

Garmin Price Performance

Shares of GRMN stock opened at $212.60 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $186.92 and its 200 day moving average price is $175.49. Garmin Ltd. has a 1-year low of $119.15 and a 1-year high of $216.44. The company has a market cap of $40.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.40 and a beta of 0.97.

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total transaction of $123,328.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 6,147 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,291,484.70. This trade represents a 8.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.