Here is What Hedge Funds Think About Garmin Ltd. (GRMN)

Due to the fact that Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) has faced declining sentiment from the aggregate hedge fund industry, we can see that there was a specific group of fund managers that decided to sell off their positions entirely by the end of the third quarter. At the top of the heap, Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management said goodbye to the biggest investment of the “upper crust” of funds followed by Insider Monkey, worth an estimated $12 million in stock. Brian Ashford-Russell and Tim Woolley’s fund, Polar Capital, also dumped its stock, about $6.4 million worth. These bearish behaviors are important to note, as total hedge fund interest fell by 3 funds by the end of the third quarter.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN). These stocks are Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPR), Envision Healthcare Holdings Inc (NYSE:EVHC), Harman International Industries Inc./DE/ (NYSE:HAR), and IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDXX). This group of stocks’ market valuations resemble GRMN’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 33.75 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $1268 million. That figure was $147 million in GRMN’s case. Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPR) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDXX) is the least popular one with only 26 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ:GRMN) is even less popular than IDXX. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.