Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.90

Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 20th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, March 13th will be paid a dividend of 0.90 per share by the scientific and technical instruments company on Friday, March 27th. This represents a $3.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. This is a positive change from Garmin’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75.

Garmin has increased its dividend by an average of 4.4% per year over the last three years. Garmin has a payout ratio of 37.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Garmin to earn $7.76 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 38.7%.

Garmin Stock Down 5.5 %

NYSE:GRMN traded down $13.32 on Thursday, hitting $228.61. The stock had a trading volume of 1,635,152 shares, compared to its average volume of 831,513. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $212.99 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $194.84. The stock has a market cap of $43.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.28 and a beta of 0.98. Garmin has a 52-week low of $128.89 and a 52-week high of $246.50.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.51. Garmin had a net margin of 25.48% and a return on equity of 17.99%. The business had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.72 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Garmin will post 7.09 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 20th. The stock was 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 directly 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 19.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

GRMN has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Garmin to a “sell” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 11th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $195.67.

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.