Westmount Partners LLC Acquires 1,000 Shares of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Westmount Partners LLC increased its holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) by 73.4% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,363 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,000 shares during the quarter. Westmount Partners LLC’s holdings in Garmin were worth $487,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of GRMN. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Garmin by 2.0% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,912,536 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $1,216,819,000 after purchasing an additional 134,303 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Garmin by 2.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,363,464 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $765,912,000 after purchasing an additional 112,815 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Garmin by 40.8% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,775,154 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $664,540,000 after purchasing an additional 1,093,219 shares in the last quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. increased its position in shares of Garmin by 0.6% during the second quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 2,006,563 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $326,909,000 after purchasing an additional 11,666 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of Garmin by 0.8% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,735,623 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $282,761,000 after purchasing an additional 13,968 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 81.60% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

GRMN has been the topic of several research reports. Morgan Stanley downgraded Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and cut their target price for the company from $155.00 to $138.00 in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Tigress Financial upped their target price on Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Garmin presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $171.00.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,743,019.88. This represents a 6.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $210.10, for a total transaction of $123,328.70. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 6,147 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,291,484.70. The trade was a 8.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Garmin Price Performance

NYSE:GRMN traded down $1.33 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $207.83. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 333,829 shares, compared to its average volume of 632,485. Garmin Ltd. has a 1 year low of $119.15 and a 1 year high of $222.97. The stock has a market cap of $39.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.37, a PEG ratio of 1.42 and a beta of 0.98. The business’s fifty day moving average is $210.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $185.69.

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