Wedge Capital Management L L P NC Trims Position in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN)

Wedge Capital Management L L P NC decreased its holdings in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN - Free Report) by 10.8% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 230,688 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock after selling 27,794 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC owned about 0.12% of Garmin worth $47,582,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of GRMN. American Century Companies Inc. grew its stake in shares of Garmin by 5.9% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 47,349 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock worth $7,714,000 after acquiring an additional 2,651 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 8.4% during the 2nd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 163,517 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock worth $26,640,000 after purchasing an additional 12,616 shares during the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 6.2% during the 2nd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 56,263 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock worth $9,175,000 after purchasing an additional 3,280 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 24.1% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 19,334 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock worth $3,120,000 after purchasing an additional 3,759 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Blair William & Co. IL lifted its position in shares of Garmin by 13.1% during the 2nd quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 5,592 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock worth $911,000 after purchasing an additional 649 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 81.60% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Barclays boosted their price target 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. Morgan Stanley cut shares of Garmin from an "equal weight" rating to an "underweight" rating and reduced their target price for the company from $155.00 to $138.00 in a report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their target price on shares of Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the company a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus price target of $171.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Garmin news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the company's 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 transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares in the company, 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 SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Sean Biddlecombe sold 587 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the director now 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. 19.54% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Garmin Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of Garmin stock traded up $0.94 on Friday, reaching $215.50. 746,938 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 652,053. Garmin Ltd. has a 1-year low of $119.15 and a 1-year high of $222.97. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $211.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $187.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $41.38 billion, a PE ratio of 27.35, a PEG ratio of 1.26 and a beta of 0.98.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN - Get Free Report) 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, topping 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 period in the previous year, the business posted $1.41 earnings per share. The business's revenue was up 24.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Garmin Ltd. will post 7.01 EPS for the current year.

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.