Topic: Growth Stocks

The Stock Pickers Digest Hotline – Friday, August 7, 2009

Article Excerpt

GARMIN $32.31, symbol GRMN on Nasdaq, rose as much as 26% this week, to $34, before slipping back to today’s price. The jump was caused by quarterly results that beat consensus estimates. In the three months ended June 30, 2009, Garmin’s earnings per share, excluding one-time items, fell 30.3%, to $0.83 from $1.19 a year earlier. Despite the drop, this was much higher than the $0.51 that analysts were expecting. Sales fell 27%, to $669.1 million from $911.7 million, but this was still better than the $657.1 million that was predicted. Garmin is a dominant maker of navigation devices that use the global-positioning system (GPS). It makes 80% of its sales from consumer products, like hand-held GPS receivers, portable navigation devices for use in cars, and fixed-mount GPS systems that are used in cars and boats. The company gets the other 20% of its sales from GPS- and VHF-enabled receivers that are used in aircraft. In the latest quarter, Garmin’s North American sales…