Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Short Interest Update

Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN - Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest during the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,020,000 shares, an increase of 5.2% from the November 30th total of 2,870,000 shares. Approximately 2.0% of the company's stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 895,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.4 days.

Insider Transactions at Garmin

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 2.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,912,536 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company's stock valued at $1,216,819,000 after buying an additional 134,303 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Garmin by 2.7% in the 3rd 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 during the period. FMR LLC boosted its stake in 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 worth $664,540,000 after purchasing an additional 1,093,219 shares during the period. Select Equity Group L.P. increased 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 worth $326,909,000 after purchasing an additional 11,666 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 13,968 shares during the period. 81.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on GRMN. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Garmin from $133.00 to $158.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Tigress Financial raised their target price on Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com cut Garmin from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut Garmin from an "equal weight" rating to an "underweight" rating and cut their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $138.00 in a report on Monday, October 7th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $171.00.

Garmin Stock Performance

NYSE:GRMN traded down $1.20 on Wednesday, hitting $206.26. 496,060 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 855,138. Garmin has a 52 week low of $119.15 and a 52 week high of $222.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $39.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.18, a P/E/G ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 0.97. The company's 50-day moving average price is $206.91 and its 200 day moving average price is $183.19.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.99 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $1.46 by $0.53. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.99% and a net margin of 25.48%. The company had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.44 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.41 EPS. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 24.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Garmin 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.