It hasn't been the best of weeks for Garmin (NASDAQ:GRMN). The market-share leader in GPS gadgetry has seen its share price dip 7% this month on analyst downgrades and insider selling.
Is it time to give up on this Stock Advisor recommendation? I don't think so. Let's dig into that negativity. As for the insider selling, Friday's filing, which had the company's CEO unloading just 50,000 shares, should never have been headline fodder. It is part of a prearranged trading plan where an executive will have small chunks of shares sold off at regular intervals.
More often than not, these 10b5-1 plans are done in the spirit of portfolio diversification and to avoid the appearance of trading on nonpublic information. It is an automated process. If a chieftain really thought a stock was peaking, would he or she really commit to a drawn-out selling process? Of course not.
The analyst downgrades? Well, that's a different story. The pros at DA Davidson and Merrill Lynch feel that Garmin's price has gotten ahead of itself lately. Merrill Lynch expects Garmin to yield a little market share in light of the onslaught of competing products being rolled out later this year.
Is losing a modest slice of market share so deadly when the pie itself is growing so quickly? Not really. Even if Merrill Lynch is right and Garmin sheds 300 basis points of market share, it would still command more than half of all GPS unit sales.
And let's talk about that future. During this week's Consumer Electronics Show, Garmin is introducing the Nuvi 680. The portable system offers many of the stylish touchscreen and multimedia features as its predecessors, but it enhances them with online connectivity. Garmin is hooking up with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) to offer MSN Direct content on the new unit. How convenient will it be to have Garmin scour the closest gasoline stations to where you are and spit back all of the current fuel prices? Movie times? Weather updates?
Garmin isn't the only one making a move in this niche. Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) recently announced a local search deal with GPS upstart Dash Navigation to spruce up unit functionality. Is this a threat to Garmin? No, it's actually an opportunity. As search engines begin jockeying for position on GPS terminals, companies like Garmin and TomTom stand to make a mint in revenue sharing on paid search possibilities. If the future is full of incremental revenue for GPS makers, as they skim a little pocket change off every theater ticket transaction or sponsored eatery referral, would you turn your back on Garmin and its peers?
If I'm right, scooping up Garmin at 22 times forward earnings would be as easy as following Garmin's voice prompts to get you where you want to be.
Microsoft is an Inside Value newsletter service selection, while Garmin and Yahoo! have been recommended by David Gardner for his Stock Advisor subscribers.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz bought himself a Garmin over the holidays, even though he claims to know the streets of South Florida inside out. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
