Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. Sells 197 Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. lowered its stake in shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 2.9% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 6,489 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after selling 197 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Life Insurance Co.’s holdings in Garmin were worth $1,338,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 40.8% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,775,154 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $664,540,000 after buying an additional 1,093,219 shares in the last quarter. Montrusco Bolton Investments Inc. purchased a new stake in Garmin during the third quarter valued at approximately $53,252,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. boosted its stake in Garmin by 1,580.3% in the third quarter. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. now owns 287,283 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock valued at $50,570,000 after acquiring an additional 270,186 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. grew its holdings in Garmin by 123.8% in the third quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 486,281 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $85,600,000 after purchasing an additional 268,996 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wedge Capital Management L L P NC acquired a new position in shares of Garmin during the third quarter worth $45,501,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on GRMN. Morgan Stanley downgraded Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Tigress Financial boosted their price target on Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Three investment 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 company. According to MarketBeat, Garmin has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $171.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, 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 position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,743,019.88. This represents a 6.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Garmin Stock Performance

Shares of GRMN stock opened at $214.38 on Thursday. Garmin Ltd. has a fifty-two week low of $119.15 and a fifty-two week high of $222.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $41.17 billion, a PE ratio of 27.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.98. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $212.17 and its 200-day simple moving average is $190.07.

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

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.