Short Interest in Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Rises By 7.1%

Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,880,000 shares, a growth of 7.1% from the August 15th total of 2,690,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 737,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 3.9 days. Currently, 1.9% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Insider Activity at Garmin

In other Garmin news, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total value of $499,015.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 88,622 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,081,348.12. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other Garmin news, Director Philip Straub sold 2,750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $181.46, for a total transaction of $499,015.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 88,622 shares in the company, valued at approximately $16,081,348.12. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Cheng-Wei Wang sold 10,055 shares of Garmin stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.16, for a total value of $1,781,343.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 40,965 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,257,359.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 12,892 shares of company stock worth $2,296,174. Corporate insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Garmin

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in GRMN. Clearstead Trust LLC acquired a new stake in Garmin during the 1st quarter worth approximately $30,000. Family Firm Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Garmin during the second quarter worth $35,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Garmin by 73.3% during the second quarter. Benjamin Edwards Inc. now owns 234 shares of the scientific and technical instruments company’s stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 99 shares during the period. Frazier Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Garmin in the fourth quarter worth $33,000. Finally, Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in Garmin in the second quarter valued at $46,000. 73.41% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Garmin Price Performance

Shares of Garmin stock opened at $172.62 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $174.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $161.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $33.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.35, a P/E/G ratio of 3.16 and a beta of 1.00. Garmin has a fifty-two week low of $99.61 and a fifty-two week high of $184.42.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $1.58 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.40 by $0.18. Garmin had a return on equity of 17.09% and a net margin of 24.36%. The company had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.42 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.45 EPS. Garmin’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Garmin will post 6.05 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on GRMN. Bank of America cut shares of Garmin from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $165.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 22nd. StockNews.com cut Garmin from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Barclays lowered Garmin from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $181.00 to $133.00 in a research note on Friday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Garmin currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $151.33.

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.